First stage of construction of Khorgos at Kazakhstan-Chinese border to be completed by July 1

The first stage of construction of Khorgos International Center of Transborder Cooperation at Kazakhstan-Chinese border will be completed by July 1 this year, Tengrinews.kz reports citing director of capital construction of Khorgos International Centre of Transborder Cooperation Ulan Zhazylbek as said at the briefing in Almaty. Zhazylbek said that the center will start functioning in 2018. Any person will be able to stay at the territory of the center for 30 days without a visa. “First of all, creation of Khorgos center will increase container transportation volume,” said vice-president of Kazakhstan Chamber of Commerce and member of the board of Khorgos center Gafur Ikhsan. “The plan is that Khorgos will provide for transportation of 120 thousand containers per year. This is an unprecedentedly huge quantity. The Baltic states are our main competitors, but we can win in speed. It will be 45 days by sea versus 15 days by land. And we have to provide for this speed,” Ikhsan said. The project costs 382 billion tenge ($2.6 billion). Kazakhstan's part of the territory is currently 185 hectares. As per the president of Khorgos center Gabdulkhakim Zhashibekov, Kazakhstan government allocated 73 billion tenge ($500 million), the remaining funds were private investments. The main objective of Khorgos center is implementation of industrial-innovative policy of the country, development of investment climate, increase of taxes payments, development of international tourism, logistics and terminal services of import-export and transit freight traffic. By Linda Buran