Trade between China and the EU remains one of the key axes of international trade. According to the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China, in 2024, trade turnover between China and the EU amounted to $785.82 billion US, exceeding China’s trade turnover with the United States by $97.5 billion. The EU countries are an important trading partner for China and one of the main markets for Chinese products. In this regard, both China and the EU are seeking to diversify their cargo delivery routes by developing various transport and logistics corridors.
The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) is a relatively new transport route compared to the established Eurasian route (via Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus), northern routes across Russia, the Trans-Siberian Railway, or sea shipments via the Suez Canal. Despite its multimodal nature (the need for at least one change in transport mode due to the crossing of the Caspian Sea) the route has received some development in recent years, including through its positioning as an alternative to existing corridors.
The current capacity of TITR is 6 million tons. There are plans to increase this to 10 million tons by 2027. The route’s capacity in terms of container transportation is 80 thousand TEUs per year.
The development of TITR as a transport corridor demonstrates a noticeable increase in transportation volumes, especially in relation to the relatively low initial base. Among the main factors for the growth in volumes, it is worth noting the favorable political and economic situation for TITR. The desire of transit countries to develop the route has found a response from extra-regional actors interested in alternative routes in the conditions of international political turbulence.
In the first eleven months of 2024, the volume of cargo transportation via TITR amounted to 4.1 million tons. The projected volume of transportation for the whole of 2024 is about 4.47 million tons. Particularly significant growth is observed in Chinese transit, which increased more than 14-fold.
According to forecasts, in 2024, about eight million tons were transshipped through the Kazakh seaports of Aktau and Kuryk; of this volume, the TITR accounted for 4.2 million tons. This growth not only reflectes an increase in export and transit volumes, but also a significant increase in import cargo flow.
Container transportation via TITR should be considered separately. In 2023, there was a decline in container traffic via TITR: the volume of transported cargo decreased by 39% to 20.5 thousand TEUs. However, already in the first 11 months of 2024, this figure reached 50.5 thousand TEUs. The projected volume of container traffic for the full year 2024 is about 55 thousand TEUs. At the same time, for the first 11 months of 2024, the volume of actual transit container traffic along the China-Europe-China route amounted to 31.5 thousand TEUs, of which 31 thousand TEUs were Chinese cargo being sent to Europe.
Despite the growth in TITR transportation, the actual volumes remain significantly lower than the route’s capacity, as well as lower than the volumes of cargo transportation along other East-West corridor routes, primarily the route through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus. In particular, China-Europe-China traffic along this route in the amounted to 358.8 thousand TEUs for the first 11 months of 2024. The projected volume of cargo transportation for the full year 2024 is 381 thousand TEUs. Thus, according to the results of January-November 2024, TITR accounts for 7.8% of all rail-based transit container traffic between China and Europe, while the corridor through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus accounts for 89.2%.
