China’s Central Asia trade now rests on Kazakh copper and Uzbek cars

China’s trade with Central Asia grew in the first half of 2026, but not in the way the regional total suggests. Almost all the growth came from two countries: Kazakhstan, which is selling China more copper, and Uzbekistan, which is buying Chinese cars and machinery in quantities its own statistics confirm. Meanwhile the largest single entry in the Chinese ledger for 2025, trade with Kyrgyzstan, shrank by a third. That Kyrgyz figure was always more about goods in transit than about the Kyrgyz economy, and its decline makes the more durable parts of China’s footprint easier to see.

What Chinese customs reported

According to the General Administration of Customs of China, as reported by OilPrice.com on 30 July, trade with the five Central Asian states reached $52.94bn in January–June 2026, up 6.5 per cent from $49.70bn a year earlier. China exported $34.94bn and imported $18bn, a ratio of roughly two to one.

The country lines tell a different story from the total. Trade with Kazakhstan rose 25 per cent to $27.2bn. Trade with Uzbekistan rose 31 per cent to $8.87bn, the fastest growth in the region. Tajikistan grew 15 per cent to $2.35bn. Turkmenistan was flat at $4.82bn. Kyrgyzstan fell from $14.25bn to $9.7bn. Excluding Kyrgyzstan, China’s trade with the region grew by about 22 per cent, from $35.5bn to $43.2bn. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan together added about $7.5bn, more than twice the net growth of the regional total.

The Kyrgyz figure was never in Kyrgyz books

The Kyrgyz decline is mostly on one side of the ledger. China’s recorded imports from Kyrgyzstan fell from $3.89bn in the first half of 2025 to $75m. Chinese exports to Kyrgyzstan eased only modestly, from $10.36bn to $9.63bn.

Kyrgyzstan’s own numbers never showed either scale. Urmat Takirov, head of the state agency Kyrgyz Export, told an investment forum in August that bilateral trade in the first half was $2.6bn, with Kyrgyz exports to China of $94.2m. For the whole of 2025 Kyrgyz data put exports to China at $152.5m. The new Chinese import figure of $75m is at last in the same range as the Kyrgyz one. The earlier billions were not.

The gap on the Chinese export side is older and larger. RFE/RL reported in March that Chinese customs put 2025 trade with Kyrgyzstan at $27.2bn, against $4.97bn in Kyrgyz statistics, and that the gap had widened from $17.1bn in 2024. Kyrgyz customs officials attribute it to method. Deputy head Almaz Akynbekov said China counts all goods sent to or through Kyrgyzstan, while Kyrgyzstan records only goods for domestic use, and he pointed to e-commerce and goods arriving via Kazakhstan without registration. Traders and the Chamber of Commerce quoted by RFE/RL also described under-declared invoices. The customs data cannot say where the goods finally end up. What they do show is that the Kyrgyz line measures a corridor, not a market.

Kazakhstan sells, Uzbekistan buys

In Kazakhstan the growth ran from Kazakhstan to China. Chinese exports to Kazakhstan rose from $14bn to $14.98bn, about 7 per cent, while Chinese imports from Kazakhstan rose from $7.79bn to $12.22bn. Kazakhstan’s Bureau of National Statistics tells the same story in its own terms. China became Kazakhstan’s largest export market in January–June, with 18.6 per cent of the $40.33bn total, ahead of Italy. Refined copper made up 7.1 per cent of exports and copper ores and concentrates 5.1 per cent, against 4.9 and 3.9 per cent a year earlier, while crude oil fell to 46.5 per cent from 52.9 per cent. Applied to the published totals, those shares imply copper exports to all destinations of about $4.9bn, up from about $3.3bn.

The two data sets do not agree on levels. Kazakh shares imply exports to China of about $7.5bn and imports from China of about $9.2bn, against China’s $12.22bn and $14.98bn. We found no published explanation for a gap of this size in 2026. Timing, valuation and the treatment of goods travelling onward from Kazakhstan may each account for part of it, and readers should treat either country’s bilateral total as approximate.

Uzbekistan is the reverse case, and here the statistics roughly agree. Its National Statistics Committee put China’s share of Uzbek trade at 23.1 per cent of $41bn in the first half, or about $9.5bn, close to China’s $8.87bn. Uzbek imports overall rose 21 per cent while exports fell 8.8 per cent, mainly because of lower gold sales; non-gold exports rose 28.7 per cent. Chinese exports to Uzbekistan rose from $5.96bn to $7.65bn. Cars are the clearest single item. Of the 65,876 passenger cars Uzbekistan imported in January–July, 63,039 came from China, and 46,749 of the total were electric.

Plants follow the cars

The Eurasian Development Bank’s monitoring of Chinese investment, published in December 2025 and covering the position at mid-2025, shows where the trade may be heading. China’s investment stock in Central Asia was $35.9bn. Kazakhstan held $11.4bn and Uzbekistan $10.7bn, most of the latter built up over the past decade. Across the region, greenfield projects rose from 43 to 60 per cent of the portfolio, manufacturing from 13 to 22 per cent and energy from 4 to 12 per cent, while extractive industries fell from 68 to 54 per cent. The EDB’s database is compiled bottom-up from announced projects, so it is a guide to direction rather than an audited stock.

The Uzbek car figures and the investment figures describe the same process from two ends: imports first, local assembly behind them. Whether local production eventually displaces imports, or simply adds to them, is the question the 2026 data cannot yet answer.

Where China is a lender, its share is falling

In the smaller economies China’s older footprint is as a creditor, and it is shrinking. President Sadyr Japarov said in August that Kyrgyzstan’s debt to the Export-Import Bank of China had fallen from $1.8bn to $1.3bn over five years, that no new Chinese loans had been taken in that time, and that the debt would be repaid by 2035. New Kyrgyz borrowing has come from multilateral lenders and the domestic market. China’s role in the region is moving from lending to governments towards trading with and investing in companies.

What to watch

Three things will show whether this pattern holds. The first is Chinese customs data for the third quarter, and whether the Kyrgyz export line keeps shrinking or rebounds, which would indicate whether the first-half decline reflects enforcement or timing. The second is copper: the Kazakh gain depends on both volumes and world prices, and the statistics published so far do not separate the two. The third is whether Kazakhstan and China reconcile their trade statistics, as Kyrgyz officials say they intend to do with Beijing. Until then, the most reliable reading of China’s economic presence in Central Asia comes from country lines checked against national data, not from the regional total.

Sources

• OilPrice.com — China’s Trade With Central Asia Surges 6.5%
• RFE/RL — China-Kyrgyzstan Trade Gap Widens As Conflicting Data Raises Transparency Concerns
• Open.kg — The trade turnover between Kyrgyzstan and China for six months amounted to $2.6 billion
• Bureau of National Statistics of Kazakhstan — Foreign trade turnover of the Republic of Kazakhstan (January–June 2026)
• Yangi O‘zbekiston — Uzbekistan’s foreign trade turnover reached 41 billion dollars in six months
• UzDaily — Electric vehicles lead Uzbekistan’s car imports in 2026
• Eurasian Development Bank — China and the Eurasian Region: Analysis of Investment Flows
• 24.kg — Kyrgyzstan plans to repay debt to China by 2035