Center for Strategic Studies of Eurasia

    Commentary · Sep 30, 2026

    China's Kyrgyz railway: the tunnels are real, the freight is not yet

    Work has started on most tunnels and bridges on the Kyrgyz section of the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway. The $4.7bn line's traffic forecast has not been tested.

    Strategic CompetitionChina & Asia-PacificCentral Asia
    Industrial tunnel entrance under construction with heavy machinery and safety equipment.
    Anil Sharma / Pexels
    Contents

    Key takeaways

    • By early September 2026 work had begun on 27 tunnels, 43 bridges and 88 roadbed sections of the Kyrgyz section, and the first tunnel, 209.6 metres long, had been bored through.
    • The $4.7bn project is financed half by a 35-year Chinese bank loan to the joint venture and half by equity split 51/24.5/24.5 between China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
    • Kyrgyzstan will borrow $304.5m of its equity from China Eximbank at 1.5 per cent over 25 years; Eximbank already held $1.41bn, or 27.1 per cent, of its external debt in June 2026.
    • The line's forecast 12–15 million tonnes a year compares with 18.7 million tonnes of Kazakhstan–China rail freight in the first half of 2026 alone.

    The China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway has passed the point where it could quietly stall. Tunnels are being bored, the financing is signed and Kyrgyzstan's parliament has begun ratifying the loan that pays for its stake. What has not moved from paper is the traffic. The line's commercial case rests on freight forecasts that no operator has yet tested, and Kyrgyzstan carries the most risk if those forecasts are wrong. The engineering is now the easier half of the project.

    What the builders reported

    On 5 September Xinhua reported that the first tunnel on the Kyrgyz section had been bored through: Kosh Dobo North No. 2, 209.6 metres long. By the project company's count, work had started on 27 tunnels, 43 bridges, 88 roadbed sections and all 20 stations. Asia-Plus, citing figures for the end of August, gave a slightly lower count against the full design: 26 of 29 tunnels, 40 of 50 bridges and 83 of 107 roadbed sections. The two sets of numbers are probably snapshots a few weeks apart rather than a real disagreement. Either way, most of the structures on the Kyrgyz stretch are now under way, roughly a year into full-scale construction.

    One finished tunnel of 210 metres is a small share of the work. Novastan puts the combined length of the line's tunnels and bridges at about 120 kilometres, and Jamestown's analysis says they make up about 40 per cent of the route. The hard part is the long bores through the Tien Shan, and neither the company nor the governments have published a schedule for them. The official target is still 2030, the date President Sadyr Japarov gave in March. Until the long tunnels are driven through, 2030 is the date to plan around.

    Even the length depends on who is counting

    Public descriptions of the line do not agree on its basic dimensions. Xinhua gives 304.84 kilometres in Kyrgyzstan; Jamestown gives 260, with 213 in China and 50 in Uzbekistan. Totals vary between 523 and 533 kilometres. The gap probably reflects different end points: whether the count runs from Kashgar or from the border, and whether it includes the stretch Kyrgyzstan is building to Jalal-Abad. The gauge sections Jamestown lists, 165.5 kilometres of 1,435mm standard gauge from the Chinese border to Makmal and 146.2 kilometres of 1,520mm track from Makmal to Jalal-Abad, add up to about 312 kilometres. That matters because the design sends all through-traffic across a gauge change at Makmal, in the middle of Kyrgyzstan. The transshipment yard there will largely set how much the corridor can carry, and it has received much less public attention than the tunnels.

    Who pays, and how

    The financing is more conservative than the usual caricature of Chinese lending. The project is costed at $4.7bn. Half, roughly $2.3–2.35bn, comes as a 35-year loan from Chinese banks to CKU Railway Company, the joint venture that will own and operate the line, and the company, not the governments, is responsible for repayment. The other half is equity: 51 per cent Chinese, 24.5 per cent each from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

    Kyrgyzstan's share has been reported as about $609m. That figure deserves checking: 24.5 per cent of $2.35bn is closer to $576m, so either the equity base is larger than half the headline cost or the figure includes other items. According to The Times of Central Asia, the government will borrow half its contribution, $304.5m, from China's Export-Import Bank over 25 years, with a five-year grace period and 1.5 per cent interest. Parliament approved the ratification bill at first reading in June. The rest is meant to come from the state budget.

    Seen from Bishkek's balance sheet, this is manageable but not trivial. The Ministry of Finance put public debt at $10.1bn at the end of June 2026, of which $5.22bn was external. Eximbank of China was the largest single creditor, owed $1.41bn, or 27.1 per cent of external debt. That share has been falling as Kyrgyzstan repays older loans and borrows elsewhere. The railway loan would push Eximbank exposure back above $1.7bn. The bigger exposure is off the sovereign books: a joint venture carrying a $2.3bn, 35-year loan whose revenue depends on traffic that does not yet exist. If it underperforms, the shareholders will be asked to make up the difference, and Kyrgyzstan has the least fiscal room of the three.

    Why the freight forecast is the constraint

    Promoters expect 12–15 million tonnes a year and say the route will be about 900 kilometres shorter and seven to eight days faster to the Middle East and southern Europe. Those figures come from the project's backers and have not been independently modelled in public. The comparison with Kazakhstan puts them in proportion. Kazakhstan's transport ministry reported 18.7 million tonnes of Kazakhstan–China rail freight in the first half of 2026 alone, up 9 per cent year on year. Novastan puts the 2024 total at more than 32 million tonnes. Kazakhstan is also adding capacity: the 272-kilometre Bakhty–Ayagoz line, due in 2027, is meant to lift cross-border rail capacity from 28 million to about 48 million tonnes a year, according to the Kazakh government.

    So the new line will not replace the Kazakh routes. At best it will complement them, as the Kazakh analyst Marat Shibutov told Novastan. A single-track mountain railway with a gauge break limits the number and length of trains. What it offers China is a second way into Uzbekistan's market and a way round Kazakhstan and Russia. What it offers Uzbekistan is a shorter link east for the Fergana Valley. The forecast volumes depend on freight that now moves by road through Kyrgyzstan, or by rail through Kazakhstan, switching to the new line, and on Chinese shippers choosing it for onward traffic to the Middle East and southern Europe. Neither is guaranteed, and tariffs at Makmal will matter as much as distance.

    The neighbours are already queuing

    Tajikistan shows how the line changes regional plans before a train has run. Tajikistan's trade with China reached $2.17bn in January–July 2026, ahead of Russia at $1.51bn, according to figures cited by Asia-Plus. President Emomali Rahmon backed a branch to Tajikistan and on to South Asia in 2019, and its transport minister raised the question of joining with his Chinese counterpart in May 2025. A trial container train from Lanzhou to Dushanbe in February 2026, over a mixed route of more than 3,500 kilometres, took an estimated 18–20 days. That sets the benchmark any new link would have to beat. No branch has been designed or financed.

    Inside Kyrgyzstan, the costs are local and immediate. Novastan reports that Kyrgyz regulators have recorded environmental violations on the works, and that 214 homes need to be demolished, with compensation disputes still open. These are the issues most likely to cause political friction in Bishkek before 2030, rather than the debt figures.

    What to watch

    Three indicators will show whether the project is on track commercially as well as physically. The first is the second reading and final ratification of the Eximbank equity loan, and whether Kyrgyzstan's budget share is actually paid in. The second is whether the joint venture publishes a traffic study, tariff policy or financial statements: without them the 12–15 million tonne figure remains a claim. The third is progress on the longest tunnels, which will decide whether 2030 holds. Governments in the region would be wise to treat the line as a useful additional corridor, not a replacement for existing routes, and to plan their budgets on that basis. Uzbek customs and rail agreements at the Andijan end also deserve attention, as the line's value to Tashkent depends on onward connections as much as on the Kyrgyz section.

    Sources

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