Kazakh producers are enhancing their export volumes. Domestic goods are currently transported by land, air and water to the markets of the Central Asian countries and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Goods are transported from Pavlodar to Russia by river barges.
All the cargo ships in the Pavlodar region are 100 per cent ready for the new navigation. The port management conducted large-scale modernization and purchased new 3,000 tonnes barges.
- Our port’s motor ships are ready. We upgraded a crane vessel this year. We are going to repair a barge that is currently at the dockyard for bottom replacement works. We are also planning to repair a crane vessel.
Construction materials, such as sand, various types of gravel and industrial salt are shipped by Irtysh River from Kazakhstan to the Russian Omsk and Tyumen regions. Last year, 900,000 tonnes of building sand were produced in the region and about 10 per cent were exported to neighboring Russia. Gravel made in Kazakhstan is in high demand in the Russian market. The demand in Tyumen region alone is twenty million tonnes of gravel per year. This year, the producers are planning to ship about 160,000 tonnes of inert materials. For the first time in fifteen years, 40,000 cubic meters of wood will be shipped from Siberia to Kazakhstan.
- There are promising cooperation prospects. Businessmen from neighboring Russia are very interested in managing cargo transshipments between Kazakhstan and China. We need to improve the controlling depth in order to further reach South Korea and other countries through the Northeast Passage.
Experts say that the Pavlodar region has great prospects of boosting exports of goods transported by river. It is economically profitable in terms of delivery time and costs, just like shipment by sea. Currently, the Kazakh and Russian specialists are jointly conducting works on the deepening of the river bed.