New road, rail link sees Chinese cargo arrive in Hairatan after only 11 days

The first load of freight from China to Afghanistan on a new road and rail route transiting Central Asia arrived in Hairatan, in northern Afghanistan, on Thursday.

Twelve containers, carrying mostly vehicle parts, took only 11 days to reach Afghanistan.

The new multimodal route starts in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province then passes through Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan before entering Afghanistan.

The cargo traveled along the first stage – around 500 kilometers from the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang to Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan – by road since there is no rail link, although one is planned eventually.

The first containers left Kashgar on September 13, the RailFreight.com website reported.

At Osh, the cargo was loaded onto trains to link up with Uzbekistan’s rail network across the border in Andijan.

They then crossed eastern Uzbekistan and headed south into Afghanistan to arrive at Hairatan, which links with the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif along an Uzbek-built railway line.

The journey on the new route took only 11 days – compared to one to three months for the current route used to send cargo from China to Afghanistan through Pakistan via the seaport of Karachi and overland.

China and Afghanistan have been trying to get a rail connection off the ground for years.

In 2016, the first cargo train traveled from China to Hairatan through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, loaded with textiles and household goods. But it took another three years before any cargo moved back along the route to China, when a train loaded with talcum powder made the journey in 2019.

The route across Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan is now undergoing a three-month pilot, and should eventually carry some 4,000 containers annually.