“Astyk Trans” called for the creation of a unified TMTM operator

At the Agricom 2025 conference, Sanjar Yelubaev, president of “Astyk Trans,” Kazakhstan’s largest grain wagon operator, emphasized that the markets of Georgia and Azerbaijan are becoming increasingly important for the sale of Kazakhstani agricultural products. However, according to him, the realization of this export potential is hindered by the underdeveloped infrastructure of the Trans-Caspian route.

“It is unclear why a unified technical operator of the TMTM with a seamless route from Kazakhstan, offering a single tariff for shipments, has not yet been created,” noted Sanjar Yelubaev.

At the same time, it was highlighted that agricultural exports showed significant growth in the past marketing year. The introduction of transport subsidies for wheat shipments to new markets allowed Kazakhstan to increase exports of food-grade grain to Azerbaijan by 120 times — from 6,000 tons to 723,000 tons. In addition, 974,000 tons of barley were shipped to Iran through Caspian ports.