Middle Corridor Freight Volume Grows Fivefold, Set to Triple

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — Freight volumes through the Middle Corridor have grown nearly fivefold — from under 1 million tonnes in 2021 to approximately 4.5 million tonnes in 2025 — and could triple again within five years if existing bottlenecks are addressed. That was the conclusion of participants at a thematic panel held during the Tashkent International Investment Forum.

BCG Partner Konstantin Prodayvoda, moderating the discussion, identified a fundamental shift in relations among corridor participants: railways, ports, and shipping companies have moved from declarations to real investment in infrastructure, digitalisation, and the removal of bottlenecks.

He noted that Uzbekistan has changed its role: whereas the country previously functioned primarily as a user of corridor services, it is now actively investing in infrastructure not only on its own territory but beyond — in particular, in terminal capacity on the Black Sea and cargo fleet capacity on the Caspian.

TRACECA Secretary General Jasurbek Choriyev said transit time along the corridor has already been reduced from 18 days in 2024 to 15 days today. He also noted the diversification of cargo types: whereas the corridor previously handled mainly oil and gas, it now carries containerised goods, grain, and fertilisers — with volumes of the latter through the ports of Turkmenbashi and Aktau nearly doubling over the past year.

Among key initiatives, Choriyev highlighted the signing in May 2026 of a unified TRACECA transit permit agreement, which replaces separate permits from each transit country. The organisation has proposed establishing a digital hub in Tashkent to integrate into international transport corridors, including a border process optimisation laboratory using artificial intelligence.

Janus Forum Managing Director Darren Spink argued in favour of a hub-led development strategy rather than building the entire corridor simultaneously. In his view, Navoiy is the optimal candidate for a major dry port at the intersection of north-south and east-west routes, comparable in scale to the Khorgos dry port on the Kazakhstan-China border.

Such a facility would simultaneously support transit flows along the Middle Corridor, enable the export of critical materials, and reduce dependence on northern routes subject to sanctions. Spink also described the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway — a line of more than 500 kilometres due for completion around 2030 — as the central project for positioning Uzbekistan as Central Asia's primary inland gateway, adding that the railway's value will be determined by what Uzbekistan builds around it: logistics centres, customs systems, and industrial zones.

World Bank Senior Infrastructure Specialist for Central Asia Winnie Wang presented a forecast under which, with coordinated investment, freight volumes through the Trans-Caspian corridor could grow from 8.8 million tonnes in 2023 to more than 32 million tonnes by 2040, delivering an average GDP increase of approximately 3% for corridor member countries. The baseline investment requirement for developing key sections is estimated at approximately US$25 billion, of which 75% is already being implemented.

The main operational challenges remain congestion at Georgian ports, significant time losses at multimodal transfer points, and the need to complete up to ten sets of different documentation when crossing national borders.

The World Bank is proposing four systemic solutions: a unified digital transport-transit-trade system with single data entry; the creation of an integrated rail-sea operator in the form of a joint venture; the establishment of a permanent real-time monitoring and coordination platform; and the commercialisation and reform of state transport enterprises.

Head of the Central Asia Unit at the European Commission's Directorate-General for International Partnerships Charlotte Adrian recalled that a 2023 EBRD study financed by the EU identified 33 hard infrastructure and 7 soft infrastructure projects with a combined value of 18 to 19 billion euros. At the EU–Central Asia Summit in Samarkand in 2025, EU leaders, backed by all 27 member states, committed to financing of 12 billion euros — covering not only transport but also digital infrastructure, energy, and critical raw materials. She said the current priority is soft connectivity: the harmonisation of procedures and a political commitment to a seamless single corridor.

OECD Eurasia Analyst Celeste Laporte-Talamon presented findings from a survey of more than 170 private companies across five Central Asian countries. The study identified three key problems: a shortage of modern Class A warehouse capacity with cold chain facilities, with storage prices in the region comparable to European levels; border crossing bottlenecks caused by a large number of parallel inspection agencies; and incompatibility of national digital systems — an electronic signature recognised in Uzbekistan is not accepted in Kazakhstan or Azerbaijan.

The OECD announced a new study at the intersection of logistics and critical minerals, as export restrictions and transport requirements for strategic raw materials differ significantly from those for ordinary goods.

CPCS Vice President for Growth and Operations Andrew Buffart identified predictability as the corridor's key requirement from a shipper's perspective: a single end-to-end service from point A to point B, rather than a collection of separate national operators.

He also presented the Canadian Infrastructure Ontario model as a possible reference point for the region: a state agency specialising in the selection, assessment, and delivery of public-private partnership projects, which regularly publishes a priority investment portfolio, giving market participants the project pipeline visibility they need. A model calculation by CPCS for the EBRD shows that with the full removal of all barriers, containerised freight through the corridor could reach 1.4 million TEU by 2040, compared with 100,000 to 130,000 TEU in a baseline scenario.

Ahlers Logistics Chief Executive Dave Van den Bos described the transformation in customer expectations: companies that initially focused exclusively on cost gradually shift their priority to reliability — and are prepared to pay more for it.

His company is investing in an AI-based transport management system capable of forecasting arrival times and flagging delays in advance, regardless of operator, transport mode, or infrastructure conditions at any given point along the route. "The key condition for the Middle Corridor's success is its reliability," he said.