Via Forbes, a report on China’s purchase of 29% of the Khorgos Gateway:

It’s now official: China’s COSCO Shipping and the Port of Lianyungang have signed on to take a 49% cut of Kazakhstan’s epic Khorgos Gateway dry port. The deal was signed at the Belt and Road summit in Beijing on May 15th for an undisclosed amount.

Khorgos Gateway sits within the broader Khorgos Eastern Gate SEZ — a massive 600-hectare development area that is strategically positioned in Kazakhstan right on the border with China. Not long ago, the place was about as remote as it gets — being just a tick or two from the Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility, the farthest point on earth from an ocean.

So why would the world’s largest marine logistics operator have any interest in a place that literally couldn’t be farther from the sea? The answer is found in the New Silk Road — the pell mell network of various international trade pacts, customs blocs, political endeavors, and mega-projects that are headlined by China’s Belt and Road initiative. The linking up of major players in China’s shipping industry with the Kazakh dry port shows the developing synergy between Kazakhstan’s Nurly Zhol infrastructure building program with China’s Silk Road Economic Belt.

Khorgos Gateway has successfully positioned itself as the central station of the New Silk Road. Sitting right at the heart of an emerging network of trans-Eurasian rail lines, which directly connect 27 cities in China with 11 cities in Europe, goods flow in from China to be consolidated and transshipped to destinations all over the Eurasian landmass. After just one year of full-fledged operation, the port is already handling over 1/5 of their 2020 goal of 500,000 TEU per year, and with COSCO and the Port of Lianyungang in the mix, cargo volumes are expected to receive a massive boost.

This deal signifies a monumental next step for Khorgos Gateway, as without investment from an array of international players, the emerging ports and SEZs of the New Silk Road are little more than skeletons of infrastructure. Such investment is what makes these places really come alive.

The Port of Lianyungang is one of the starting points of the central corridor of the overland Silk Road between China and Europe. A rail line and the emerging Western Europe-Western China highway — which will extend all the way to St. Petersburg, Russia when completed — move in tandem all the way across China and directly link in with Khorgos Gateway before moving on to Europe beyond. It is one of the larger seaports in the world, moving 200 million tons of cargo and 5 million containers per year. KTZ Express, the Kazakh logistics empire, also operates a terminal there.

While COSCO is the one of the world’s shipping giants, with over 1,100 ships sailing the seas, moving over 1.6 million containers each year between 254 ports in 79 countries. As a state-owned enterprise, the company has been a very active player in China’s Belt and Road initiative — Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy endeavor — with major holdings up and down its various land and sea routes — including Greece’s Piraeus port. This January, COSCO received a $26.1 billion chit from China Development Bank to further invest in Belt and Road projects.

Next moves?

Watch for DP World, the Dubai shipping giant who currently advises at the Khorgos Eastern Gate SEZ, to finally make good on their long-touted promise to become actual investors in the zone.

In other words, watch for this once obscure shipping hub in the heart of Eurasia to not only come alive but thrive.