On October 4-6, the capital of Kazakhstan – Astana hosted the international transport-logistics exhibition "TransLogistica Kazakhstan 2023". The Latvian transport industry was represented by a delegation of more than 50 experts from the transport and logistics industry, including Riga Freeport, Ventspils Freeport, Liepāja SEZ, Representatives of the SJSC Latvian Railway (“Latvijas Dzelzceļš”), Association of Latvian Stevedoring Companies, Riga International Airport and many other transport companies. During the exhibition, the Latvian delegation met with existing and potential cooperation partners to strengthen existing partnerships and create new ones. On October 4, just right after the opening ceremony of the exhibition, lot of industry experts were gathered in the "New Silk Way" transport and logistics business forum to discuss the role of Kazakhstan and the Central Asian region in the development of international transport corridors in the current geopolitical situation.
The head of the Latvian delegation – the Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of Transport of Latvia, Head of the Advertising Commission of the Council of Latvian Ports, Transit and Logistics, as well as Co-Chairman of the Latvia – Kazakhstan Transport working group Uldis Reimanis was invited to visit ports of Aktau and Kuryk in order to learn more about their infrastructure and services as well as to discuss potential in cooperating with Latvia in providing multimodal transport routes between Central Asia and Europe. On October 5, Uldis Reimanis met with the Minister of Transport of Kazakhstan Marat Karabayev to discuss bilateral cooperation activities in road transport, aviation and railway sectors, as well as possibilities to promote the use of Latvian ports in multimodal transport, particularly road transport routes. Over the past few years, road transport between Latvia and Kazakhstan has been increasing, and so has the railway transport - volumes in 2022 increased 4 times compared to the previous year. Both parties are interested in expanding cooperation in both sectors. Both parties also discussed cooperation in aviation sector, including the signing of the Latvian-Kazakhstan Agreement on air transportation in the near future, providing more opportunities to intensify cooperation in this sector as well. U.Reimanis informed M. Karabayev about the meeting of the Latvian-Kazakhstan Intergovernmental Commission planned for December this year and invited him to visit Latvia together with the business delegation to see the Latvian transport infrastrucure and logistics possibilities.