Once a niche destination, Central Asia is quickly emerging as a key market for Chinese travellers, supported by robust traffic growth, expanding air links and deeper economic ties under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, according to analysts. Data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China showed that passenger traffic to Central Asia grew 59.3 per cent in 2025 from a year earlier, marking one of the fastest growth rates among all regions tracked, said Mayur Patel, commercial and industry...
As the US-Israeli war with Iran chokes off shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the “Middle Corridor” is being held up as a critical alternative lifeline linking East Asia to Europe. Also known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, the Middle Corridor is a multimodal logistics route that connects China and Europe via Kazakhstan in Central Asia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the South Caucasus, the Caspian Sea and Turkey. Waqar Ahmad, president of Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev University,...
The war in Iran is not just a regional crisis. It is reshaping global energy flows, disrupting shipping routes and forcing governments to reassess the vulnerability of their supply chains. For China, the conflict has exposed an increasingly urgent problem: the risks of heavy reliance on maritime energy imports from the Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world’s most critical chokepoints, carrying roughly a fifth of global oil and gas under normal conditions. Any sustained disruption –...
Afghanistan aims to increase trade with Central Asian countries to US$10 billion within the next three or four years, Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said on Sunday. Trade with Central Asian countries to Afghanistan’s north came to about US$2.7 billion in 2025, itself a significant increase over previous years, Muttaqi said. He stated Afghanistan’s new trade goal with its neighbours at a “constructive dialogue” meeting in Kabul with representatives from Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan,...