- Sholpan Gylymbekovna, let's understand the "cuisine" of international railway transportation. What are the features here, its own rules and, perhaps, "pitfalls"?

- The president of our company has a rule - to solve the problem before it occurs. A very effective rule, as practice shows. The Department of International railway transportation was created one of the first in the Atasu Group and during this time we have put the work as smoothly as possible, all the details have been worked out from all sides. For more than 20 years, we have focused mainly on China. Our first shipments were mainly related to forwarding, but it was not just in the format of "payment of railway tariffs by territories" and that's it. If, for example, the cargo leaves China, we start full control over the transportation from there. We have a team of brokers that checks all the necessary documents up to each digit - the permit of the sanitary inspection station for this cargo, we find out what customs regulation this cargo falls under, whether it can be imported to Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Russia or Azerbaijan.

We help the client in all matters, since the language barrier plays a role, and the laws in different countries, of course, are different. The quality of our services is only indicated by the fact that all our clients remain with us, even those with whom we started working two decades ago and with whom we have already established friendly relations. Of great importance is the fact that we work on the principle of a "single window", when the client does not need to contact other companies to make a loading scheme, measure the cargo, provide a conductor, insure the cargo, etc. Our engineers do everything quickly. Cargo passes unhindered. Our other "trump card" is the speed of order processing. Efficiency is always important for the client. And we try not to violate the agreed deadlines, no matter how difficult the conditions may be. For example, last year we sent an oversized cargo from China to Ukraine-the CIC-snapshot device for customs authorities. They were afraid that Russia would not miss the cargo because of the political situation. But everything went well.

- And how often do "downtime" of cargo occur and for what reasons it mainly happens?

- Unfortunately, this issue is relevant for Kazakhstan. Our country has a very large transit potential and it is increasing every day. But the problem of cargo delays at the junctions is not solved and, as a result, time and speed of delivery are lost. There is no clear scheme. For example, the cargo gets up for customs inspection, a notification comes, then the cargo waits for its turn until it is inspected. And here there is a shortage of personnel in the customs authorities, when there is simply no one to inspect and miss the cargo on time. Downtime can be measured in weeks, because customs simply does not have people. Of course, this affects the development of the country's transit potential. The second point is that we waited for a specialist, he came, inspected the cargo, and, perhaps, revealed a discrepancy and again put the cargo on hold. This is again time, expenses, and so on. At the Altynkol and Dostyk junction stations, in general, the throughput should be very high. Wouldn't it be better to inspect all imported goods at the arrival station? When the cargo arrived in Almaty, it is standing on the WTS waiting for customs clearance, at the same time, a customs officer can inspect it and not delay this process. And in general, I believe that the transit cargo can not be inspected. It is enough to send a notification to the recipient country if there are certain suspicions and let their customs inspect the cargo at the border. Our state does not bear any damage. On the contrary, only expenses – in order for our person to inspect the cargo, he needs to spend his time, the goods stand for weeks, take up space, deadlines are violated everywhere, no one pays taxes for transit cargo to Kazakhstan, that is, we absolutely do not win anything here. This is the main problem.

- Do they delay any cargo and on any route? Or is there some kind of connection?

- I would say that there are priorities. For example, I have not observed such problems with regard to cargo going to Europe. As for Asia, it is necessary to "shut up". Probably, this should be solved at the government level. Why, if to the countries of Europe - the customs is working out everything at an accelerated pace? Because, probably, there are agreements at the state level. I don't know whether this issue was raised at the level of the heads of Asian states. Asian countries are different-patient, there is a different mentality there. Europeans are modern, they will definitely ask-why the delay?

- What else, in your opinion, hinders the development of the transit potential of the republic today?

- The issue with the infrastructure. If, for example, you look at the Alashankou or Khorgos stations and compare them with our Altynkol and Dostyk stations, then it is obvious that we need to invest money, develop, fill in personnel gaps, and engage in digitalization. Our colleagues from other countries, especially European ones, constantly come here and demonstrate at special presentations how well their work is debugged. We just need to work in this direction. A separate issue is tariffs. This year we conducted a study on why many goods go to Uzbekistan through Russia, although for this we have to make a very large circle, the difference is almost four thousand kilometers. They have a much cheaper price, the difference is almost three thousand dollars. Of course, it is easier for the Uzbek recipient to wait, but it is cheaper to pay.

- Sholpan Gylymbekovna, surely the problems you have voiced have worsened during the pandemic. How has the coronavirus affected international transportation? After all, we are still seeing the consequences-recently, for example, it was reported that a huge amount of cargo has accumulated in China due to the situation with seaports…

- One of the recent trends related to China is a noticeable increase in the cost of the rate. The Chinese have raised prices very much. I think this is a big impact of the pandemic on the entire market. The sending process has become more complicated, additional fees have been introduced in many countries for additional disinfection. Cargo that could not go by car, passed along the railway. But so far this process is going on in waves, there is no stability. As soon as there is a new outbreak of coronavirus in some province, we already understand what will happen. But what to do, in logistics, in principle, it seems to me, is rarely stable. Our work is like this.

- What countries and areas does your department work with?

- A very large percentage of China, Russia and the CIS countries. We have representative offices in almost all major cities of China, Russia and the CIS, and we also send container trains from Tashkent to China on a regular basis.

- And what kind of cargo do you most often transport?

- It can be absolutely anything. Everything that can be transported by rail. On conveyors and platforms, we usually transport oversized cargo up to 200 tons per one cargo place (special equipment, transformers), a large flow of wagon and container traffic is mainly household appliances, spare parts, dishes, steel, pipes, and so on.

- Sholpan Gylymbekovna, let's summarize. Your working conditions are very difficult, especially in recent months. Nevertheless, the department's employees have high work results. It turns out that there is a demand, and your specialists are motivated by successful indicators at the same time?  

- Every month, more than 3000 traffic passes through us along the Altynkol border, about 1500 along the Dostyk border. These are huge volumes. And believe me, only love for your profession can move logisticians, given the problems I described above. In general, I love my work very much. Logistics is insanely interesting. Every day there is something new, new routes and new solutions. Recently, there was a large-scale government order, buses were transported for Saryarka-Avtoprom. None of those who participated in this project practically did not sleep while they were working out this application - they were sheathing, loading, feeding cars, sending them. Or sending six container trains from Zhetisu with copper to JINHUANAN (China) in December, right before the New Year. The Chinese office has worked 100 %. This is all very interesting and at the same time very responsible. I have been working in logistics for more than 15 years. It is important to be able to build the right relationship with the client, because people are also different. I would like to express my special gratitude to our leader – Marat Zhuman never stands still. I don't know where he gets so much energy from, but he never stops. But it seems that we have finished one project, something new again, and we are all immersed in this work again. There are several projects at once. It charges, of course. When working as a team, you always want to strive for results. And here I am immensely grateful to our team. These are really dedicated people to their profession. Our team is very close-knit and friendly, which I am very proud of and appreciate.

- Thank you for the conversation, good luck to you!