The five Central Asian presidents met with Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev in Avaza on October 8 for the Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia and the Republic of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s participation brings a principal outlet for Central Asian trade into the six governments’ economic deliberations. Within their consultative format, the states can coordinate industrial projects with the transport services through which regional producers reach foreign markets. If Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan connect cross-Caspian transport more closely to industrial cooperation, the corridor could become an organizing axis for regional integration.
The Case for Trans-Caspian Integration
Closer Azerbaijan–Kazakhstan cooperation would make cross-Caspian transport more dependable if trains reach Kazakhstani ports in time for Caspian sailings and cargo arriving at Azerbaijani terminals connects with onward services through Georgia. A 2023 assessment by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), also called the World Bank, identified trade among Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Europe as a driver of corridor demand, giving regional exporters a place alongside China–Europe transit traffic.
Onward connections from the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan (CKU) railway now under construction could run through Turkmenistan and across the Caspian to Azerbaijan, providing an alternative to routes through Iran. Conflict involving Iran strengthens Azerbaijan’s position as the more dependable western outlet for Europe-bound exports. Greater predictability could offset the cost of a Caspian crossing by reducing the stocks firms must hold against delays and the losses caused by interrupted deliveries. Extending the operating coordination developed with Kazakhstan to these southern connections could make Azerbaijan commercially preferable for Central Asian exporters serving European markets.
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan occupy the principal positions in this prospective reorientation. Together, they represent approximately one-third of the six countries’ population but account for more than three-fifths of their nominal GDP. Yet bilateral merchandise trade amounted to only $470.7 million in 2025. Their combined economic weight is thus disproportionate to the commerce presently linking them. The infrastructure and institutions connecting industrial investment to markets across the Caspian could give the two countries a basis for organizing wider regional integration, provided firms sustain commercial relationships through those connections.
The Bilateral Basis for Regional Integration
Export commitments depend on the cost and timing of the complete transport service. At Avaza, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev attached “particular importance” to developing the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), also known as the Middle Corridor. His Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, advocated joint investment, manufacturing, and entry into foreign markets. For firms undertaking joint production, the commercial viability of Aliyev’s proposal would depend on transport coordinated from departure to delivery.
Kazakhstan is developing the Middle Corridor along with the eastern branch of the International North–South Transport Corridor, which links Russia and Iran through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. At Avaza, Turkmenistan’s President Serdar Berdimuhamedov supported the development of North–South corridors in addition to East–West routes. Tokayev also highlighted the continuing importance to Kazakhstan of the North–South route in cooperation with Russia. Kazakhstan’s multi-vector approach thus extends to transport infrastructure: the Middle Corridor strengthens westward access without displacing the commercial connections maintained through Russia and Iran.
Middle Corridor Multimodal (MCM), formed by the railway operators of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Georgia, provides an organizational basis for coordinating east-west connections already in service. Azerbaijan Railways’ August 2025 emphasis on stronger digital integration addresses the venture’s reliability; its value to shippers ultimately depends on coordinating train movements with Caspian sailings. That month, MCM’s railway partners signed a protocol for China Railway Container Transport’s inclusion in the venture.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry confirmed in July 2024 that the two countries had signed an agreement on a $300 million investment fund in Astana. The announcement specifies the fund’s intended scale without showing how much has been disbursed or which production projects have received financing. At Avaza, Aliyev called for more active use of joint funds to support manufacturing.
Oil exports demonstrate how onward constraints affect the cross-Caspian connection. KazMunayGas’s 2025 trading update recorded a temporary suspension of Aktau–Baku shipments from August to October that year because of technological constraints on the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline. The update also identified scheduled tanker modernization as a constraint on marine transport. The oil chain differs from containerized rail and maritime freight, but both require onward services to accommodate shipments originating on the Kazakhstani side.
Conditions for Supply-Chain Participation
Predictable delivery times are essential for Central Asian suppliers to meet foreign buyers’ production and distribution schedules. By reducing the need for precautionary inventories or alternative suppliers, dependable delivery would make continuing contracts with Central Asian firms more practicable: intermediate-goods suppliers could commit to manufacturers’ production schedules, while finished-goods exporters could meet buyers’ distribution schedules. These export commitments would constitute regional demand for corridor services alongside third-country transit, consistent with the World Bank’s regional trade analysis.
Regional producers will also have to meet buyers’ quality requirements and sustain output at the volumes their contracts specify. Joint production would require firms in different countries to fulfill their commitments within a common production chain. Tokayev proposed linking industrial cooperation centers with border trade and logistics facilities, which he said “could be interconnected to build regional value chains.” Growing transit traffic demonstrates use of the route, without establishing that regional firms have entered continuing supplier relationships or can fulfill supply contracts.
The World Bank’s September 2026 assessment notes that uneven implementation of regulatory norms and fragmented governance require administrative remedy. To reduce administrative fragmentation across the journey, the report proposes a digital system combining contracts of carriage with customs and onward transport records in a single data entry. Corridor-wide monitoring would help governments and operators resolve bottlenecks, while more commercial management of state enterprises would sustain the joint service.
Feeder routes that connect production sites to the main network by road or rail would extend the corridor’s commercial reach inland, supported by terminals through which producers could consolidate their shipments. The World Bank estimates investment needs through 2040 of at least $25 billion for physical bottlenecks and about $30 billion for enabling infrastructure. The estimates cover nine economies and represent investment requirements, rather than financing pledged by the six states at Avaza.
Industrial Cooperation and Regional Reorientation
Uzbekistan is seeking to connect transport investment with industrial cooperation among the six economies. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev proposed joint industrial and technological production chains under the formula “six economies—one product.” At Avaza, he also proposed a platform to prepare joint projects, for which he has sought financial and technical support. Alongside project preparation, Mirziyoyev urged accelerated establishment of an infrastructure development council to coordinate infrastructure serving production sites and their export routes. He also offered to host a Central Asia–Azerbaijan business forum in Khiva in 2027. These arrangements would need to respond to the commercial requirements of participating firms.
For producers in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, competitive access to the corridor depends on feeder routes supported by inland logistics facilities; otherwise, the cost of reaching Caspian ports can absorb savings achieved on the trunk route. Connecting the CKU railway to this network would therefore need to serve regional producers as well as Chinese transit cargo. Without the domestic connections included in the World Bank’s enabling investment agenda, corridor gains could concentrate around the principal transport facilities, leaving inland producers unable to use maritime services at competitive cost.
If industrial investment and production partnerships develop around access to foreign markets through the Trans-Caspian corridor, the economic center of regional integration would shift toward that route. Decisions in Baku and Astana about transport capacity and joint project finance would increasingly shape industrial development in inland states exporting through these partnerships. Economic cooperation would then be organized around the corridor without requiring production to relocate.
Within the six governments’ consultative format, joint projects involving inland producers could supply the freight base for regular cross-Caspian sailings. As Tokayev noted, however, out of more than 200 regional initiatives proposed since 2018, only a “small proportion” have been implemented. During Azerbaijan’s 2027 chairmanship, project preparation could be coordinated with the transport capacity required to carry the resulting exports. Closer Azerbaijan–Kazakhstan ties will deepen regional integration if firms elsewhere in Central Asia can build cross-Caspian routes into their production and export plans.