LONDON, August 10. /Dunyo IA/. An interview with Akramjon Nematov, First Deputy Director of the Institute for Strategic and Regional Studies (ISRS) under the President of Uzbekistan, has been published on the website of the popular British magazine EM Insight under the headline “How China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway is redrawing the economic map of the continent”.

According to the ISRS representative, this large-scale infrastructure project will not only modernize the transport and logistics system but also fundamentally transform the geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape of Central Asia as a whole.

Interview notes that the pace of the project's implementation is ahead of the original schedule. Initially planned to take five years, construction of this “project of the century” is expected to be completed and the railway commissioned one year ahead of schedule. At present, active construction work is underway at 83 of the 107 planned sites in Kyrgyzstan. More than 10,000 specialists and around 7,000 pieces of heavy construction equipment are involved in the implementation of the project.

As Akramjon Nematov noted, the new railway's designed annual capacity will reach up to 15 million tonnes of cargo. By comparison, 10.5 million tonnes of cargo were transported across Kyrgyzstan's entire national railway network in 2025. The new route will shorten the distance from China to Europe and the Middle East by nearly 900 kilometres and reduce cargo delivery times by 7–8 days.

Expert particularly emphasized that the new railway will strengthen Uzbekistan's position as a regional transit hub and provide access to the markets of South Asia, the Middle East and Europe. In addition, it will form an integrated transport network connecting the East–West and North–South routes and will be integrated with the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), also known as the Middle Corridor, and the Trans-Afghan transport corridor.

Article also pays particular attention to the industrial and socio-economic significance of the project. Specialized industrial and logistics zones, including major hubs such as the Makmal freight transfer station, are planned to be established along the railway. This will contribute to transforming the Fergana Valley and remote mountainous areas into centers of production and investment, increasing tourist flows and creating new jobs.

“This railway will provide a solid foundation for transforming Central Asia from a region primarily oriented towards raw material exports and transit into an independent center of manufacturing, logistics and value creation”, “EM Insight” reports.