On February 24, the First Deputy Prime Minister, Askar Mamin, during a working visit to Mangistau region held a meeting on the development of the SEZ “Sea Port Aktau” and the implementation of the Logistics Infrastructure Development Plan in the Caspian Sea.

From the moment of creation, 94.6 billion tenge was attracted to the territory of the special economic zone, products worth of 260.4 billion tenge were made, 23.6 billion tenge was received in the form of taxes to the budget. 1300 jobs were created.

18 projects of the 27 registered participants of SEZ on the territory were put into operation. By the end of the year, it is planned to launch 5 more projects totaling 10.5 billion tenge with the creation of 254 jobs.

Askar Mamin noted that the enterprises participating in the Aktau Seaport should make every effort to increase the competitiveness of their products both on the domestic and foreign markets. In addition, he instructed to intensify the work on attracting foreign investment in the SEZ, stressing that "this issue is under special control of the Government."

Report on the Work Plan for Logistics Infrastructure in the Caspian Sea for 2018-2020 was made by the Vice President of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy NC, Sanzhar Elyubaev.

He informed that in 2017 the Caspian multimodal node of Kazakhstan processed over 5.5 million tons of cargo. With a decrease in the transportation of crude oil, work continued to diversify the cargo base in the Caspian Sea, the share of general cargo increased to 80% of the total transshipment compared to 60% in 2016.

In 2018, the transshipment volume will be more than 10 million tons, the share of dry and ferry cargo will remain at 80%, and by 2020 — will be about 16.7 million tons. The volume of container cargo through ports in 2018 is planned to be at the level of 35 thousand TEU, and by 2020 — 300 thousand TEU.

In 2017, the volume of cargo transshipment through the Kuryk port amounted to 1.5 million tons of various cargo. This year, this figure is planned to increase to 4.5 million tons.

The First Deputy Prime Minister stressed that "objects of logistics infrastructure in the Caspian Sea are an important link in the Trans-Caspian corridor. The Head of State N. Nazarbayev set the task of increasing the transit potential. To fulfill the President's instruction, a modern logistics infrastructure is being created. Already today we see positive results, for example, in the port of Kuryk this year we plan to increase the volume of ferry cargo by about three times."

As part of the trip to Mangistau region, A. Mamin got acquainted with the activities of the Kuryk port, the zone of border and customs infrastructure, social facilities, as well as the process of transshipment of vehicles to the countries of the Caucasus region, Russia and Turkey. In total, this year it is planned to provide transshipment of about 20 thousand pieces of equipment, which is twice as much as in the previous year.