In the eight months of 2026, Kazakhstan's transport sector carried more than 625.7 million tonnes of freight and 1.3 billion passengers - while passenger turnover grew almost nine times faster than freight turnover. The gap shows that during this period the transport sector grew primarily on the back of population mobility rather than goods flows.
WHAT THE BUREAU OF NATIONAL STATISTICS DATA SHOW
According to data from the Bureau of National Statistics, the physical volume index of services in the "Transport and warehousing" section in January-August 2026 was 107.3% compared with the corresponding period last year - that is, growth of 7.3%. This is noticeably lower than the rates in 2025. Throughout 2025, growth remained in the range of 19–23%, but since the start of 2026 it has fallen sharply and by August stood at around 7%, meaning the sector has been slowing for almost three consecutive quarters.
Freight turnover by all modes of transport amounted to 342.6 billion tonne-kilometres (+0.8% compared with January-August 2025), and 625.7 million tonnes of freight were carried (+0.6%). Passenger turnover rose to 64 billion passenger-kilometres (+7%), and 1.3 billion passengers were carried (+3.8%).
WHY FREIGHT TRANSPORT IS BARELY GROWING
The weak overall growth in freight turnover is explained by the dynamics across modes of transport. Rail transport, which bears the main burden of freight carriage, delivered 218.8 million tonnes - 1.8% less than a year earlier, although freight turnover in tonne-kilometres rose by 1.7%. This means that the same or smaller volumes of freight began to be carried over longer distances. Pipeline transport cut shipments by 2.3%, and freight turnover fell by 2.4%.
Growth was provided by road transport (freight +5.2%, freight turnover +6.8%) and maritime transport, where shipment volumes increased by 11.3% and freight turnover by 22.3%. However, maritime shipments remain statistically small - 2.8 million tonnes in eight months. Inland waterway transport grew 1.5-fold, but also from a small base - 193,500 tonnes.
WHAT IS BEHIND THE GROWTH IN PASSENGER TRANSPORT
The 7% increase in passenger turnover was driven primarily by road and air transport. Road transport carried 3.9% more passengers, and passenger turnover rose by 8%. Air transport carried 11 million passengers (+3.8%), while passenger turnover increased more strongly - by 9.4%, to 22.7 billion passenger-kilometres, which points to a growing share of long-haul flights.
Rail passenger transport, by contrast, declined: 13 million passengers were carried (-3.9%), and passenger turnover fell by 0.1%.
WHICH REGIONS SHOWED THE GREATEST GROWTH
In regional terms, the largest increase in passenger turnover was recorded in Kostanay Region - 67.9%, which stands out noticeably against the other regions. It is followed by Almaty (22.6%), Shymkent (21%), Almaty Region (16.7%) and Akmola Region (16.2%).
In freight turnover, Zhetisu Region (13%) and Kyzylorda Region (10%) lead, while in the other regions freight turnover growth rates do not exceed 10%.
