Baku Shipyard to build two dry cargo ships for Kazakhstan

A ceremony at the Baku Shipyard marked the exchange of documents for the construction of two universal dry cargo ships for KTZ Express Shipping, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy. The ceremony took place on 15 October during a working visit to Baku by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit. The contracts for the vessels were signed in April 2026.

According to the press service of the Samruk-Kazyna fund, cited by Day.Az and Trend, the ceremony was attended by Samruk-Kazyna chairman Nurlan Zhakupov and Azerbaijan's Minister of Digital Development and Transport Rashad Nabiyev, who is also chairman of the supervisory board of AZCON Holding. The ships will be deployed on the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), which links Asia and Europe.

The fund said developing its own maritime fleet will allow Kazakhstan to improve the efficiency of freight management, increase the carrying capacity of the Trans-Caspian route and attract international cargo flows. The project implements Tokayev's instructions and aims to develop a multimodal transport and logistics system. Earlier, on 1 October, Kazakh transport ministry official Kassym Tlepov said Kazakhstan expects eight more container ships by 2028, four to be built in Baku and four in China.