On February 6, senders and recipients of cargoes in the form of grain and flour once again gathered for a meeting with the participation of the management of KTZ – Freight Transportation to discuss problems with train delays and plans for shipment for February. Since, due to accumulated infrastructure problems, the delivery time of goods is 2-3 times higher than the regulatory ones, exporters suffer losses due to the failure of contracts. At the same time, KTZ continues to impose fines for late execution of shipment requests. After discussion in the company "KTZ-GP" an order was issued to cancel the fines.
Cancellation penalties for non-fulfillment of applications under the plan of transportation of grain, flour and bran in January and February 2023, both in domestic and export traffic.
Taking this decision, KTZ-GP took into account the untimely removal of trains by railway administrations from Russia, Uzbekistan and China. There is also a seasonal increase in grain cargo transportation and the growth of the fleet of wagons to a record 112 thousand units.
Currently, there are up to 380 abandoned trains on the KTZ network. As a result, shippers were not provided with empty wagons in a timely manner, which in turn led to their non-fulfillment of requests under the grain cargo transportation plan.
According to the national company KTZ, 10 million tons of grain were transported through its network in 2022, including 8 million tons for export. The growth compared to the previous year is 18%.
Exports to Central Asian countries increased by 11% and amounted to 5.6 million tons. Deliveries to China due to the development of container transportation increased by 134%, amounting to 600 thousand tons.
The volume of flour shipments in 2022 amounted to 3.1 million tons, including 2.3 million tons for export. The growth for the year is 53%. 2 million tons were shipped to Central Asian countries (+41% by 2021), 300 thousand tons to China.
Growth continues in 2023. In January, Kazakhstan exported 138 thousand tons of flour, while 118 thousand tons were exported abroad in January 2022.