KTZ reports unprofitability of grain transport due to low tariffs

The national company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) is incurring significant financial losses from grain transportation, as the current tariff is nearly half the actual cost of the service.

Grain cargo transportation remains unprofitable for JSC "NC "KTZ". At the end of last year, the company's losses in this segment amounted to 44 billion tenge. This was announced by Dair Kusherov, KTZ's Managing Director for Finance, during a meeting of the Mazhilis Committee on Agrarian Issues.

According to him, this situation persists despite previous tariff increases. In the last two years, rates for grain transportation have risen by an average of 24% annually. These measures were previously approved by the State Commission for Economic Modernization, which also approved similar growth for the 2024-2026 period.

The KTZ representative emphasized that even with the planned increase, the cost of the service remains twice as high as the established price, which led to multi-billion tenge losses in 2024.

The company plans to bring the tariff up to the cost level by 2030. Dair Kusherov assured that a sharp twofold increase in cost is not anticipated.
A 24% tariff increase is also planned for 2026. Additionally, the company has submitted a tariff application to the Committee for Regulation of Natural Monopolies for a five-year period. In the future, as the KTZ representative noted, rates are expected to be indexed according to the inflation level.