On a frigid January morning in 2026, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev arrived in Islamabad not with fanfare but with purpose. His motorcade swept through the Pakistani capital’s diplomatic enclave, carrying with it something far more valuable than ceremonial pomp: 37 memoranda of understanding and a $1 billion bilateral trade target. For a landlocked nation 2,000 kilometers from the nearest ocean, this wasn’t diplomacy—it was economic survival. And Pakistan, sitting astride the Arabian Sea with its warm-water ports beckoning northward like commercial magnets, suddenly found itself at the center of Central Asia’s great pivot south.
Welcome to the new Silk Road tollbooth—where geography is destiny, and Pakistan is betting its economic future on becoming the indispensable bridge between landlocked Central Asia and global markets.
The Landlocked Dilemma: Why Central Asia Needs Pakistan
Central Asia’s five post-Soviet republics—Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan—along with Afghanistan, face a structural economic challenge that no amount of oil, gas, or cotton can fully overcome: they have no direct access to the sea. Uzbekistan bears the dubious distinction of being doubly landlocked, surrounded entirely by other landlocked countries. This geographic predicament inflates transportation costs by 200-300% compared to maritime nations, according to World Bank assessments, effectively pricing Central Asian exporters out of competitive global markets.
Current trade routes snake northward through Russia to Baltic ports, westward across the Caspian to Europe via Azerbaijan, or eastward through China’s congested rail networks—each adding weeks to transit times and thousands of dollars to shipping costs. The result? Central Asian countries that depend heavily on exports of agricultural products, energy resources, and minerals find their economic growth constrained by isolation from international shipping lanes.
Enter Pakistan, with its strategic Arabian Sea coastline and deepwater ports at Karachi, Gwadar, and Port Qasim. The math is compelling: a shipment from Uzbekistan to Mumbai via Pakistan takes 3-5 days by rail and sea; the same journey routed through Russia and the Suez Canal requires 35 days. For landlocked nations hemorrhaging competitive advantage with every additional day of transit, Pakistan represents not just an alternative route—it represents economic viability.
A $2 Billion Handshake: The Uzbekistan-Pakistan Trade Acceleration
The clearest signal of this tectonic shift came February 3, 2026, when Pakistan and Uzbekistan reaffirmed their commitment to quadruple bilateral trade to $2 billion within five years. At the 10th session of the Pakistan-Uzbekistan Intergovernmental Commission, both sides agreed to accelerate institutional mechanisms covering trade, investment, transport, agriculture, energy and technology cooperation.
The numbers tell a story of momentum: bilateral trade between Kazakhstan and Pakistan doubled from $48.6 million in January-November 2024 to $101.3 million in the same period of 2025. Pakistan became the first Central Asian partner with which Uzbekistan signed both a bilateral Transit Trade Agreement and a Preferential Trade Agreement, operational since 2023 and now expanding from 17 to 92 product categories.
But these agreements represent more than spreadsheets and tariff schedules. They’re a fundamental recalibration of trade geography. Kazakhstan signed a transit trade agreement with Pakistan in May 2025, opening access to Karachi and Gwadar ports. Uzbekistan, whose $320 million in exports to Pakistan in 2025 demonstrated growing commercial confidence, is pursuing the Trans-Afghan Railway—a 647-kilometer steel spine that would finally connect Termez to Pakistan’s rail network and Arabian Sea ports.
The Trans-Afghan Railway: Threading the Needle Through Conflict
Perhaps no single infrastructure project better encapsulates both the promise and peril of Pakistan’s transit ambitions than the Trans-Afghan Railway. Proposed in 2018 and formalized through a framework agreement on July 17, 2025, this $4.6 billion project plans to extend rails from Uzbekistan’s border town of Termez, through Afghanistan’s Mazar-i-Sharif and Logar, before crossing into Pakistan at Kharlachi and linking to Karachi’s seaports.
The planned line will follow the Termez–Naibabad–Maidanshahr–Logar–Kharlachi route, linking Uzbekistan to Pakistan’s rail network and providing access to Karachi and other seaports, with the project’s preliminary cost estimated at $4.6 billion. Once operational, it’s projected to handle 20 million tons of cargo annually, slashing transit times from weeks to days.
Yet ambition collides with Afghanistan’s brutal reality. The railway must traverse terrain controlled by the Taliban, through regions plagued by insurgency, ethnic tensions, and the cross-border militant activity that periodically ignites Pakistan-Afghanistan border conflicts. October 2025’s deadly clashes between Pakistani forces and Taliban fighters resulted in border closures that persisted for three months, offering a sobering preview of the railway’s vulnerability.
Security isn’t the only challenge. Financing remains uncertain, with the cost estimate ranging from $4.6 billion (Uzbekistan’s calculation) to $8.2 billion (Pakistan’s assessment). The 760-kilometer route crosses seismically active zones, high mountain passes, and regions where even road construction proves treacherous. Yet trilateral momentum persists: a Tripartite Coordination Committee now oversees technical studies, with completion targeted for 2027—an aggressive timeline given the obstacles.
When Borders Close: The $375 Million Lesson in Resilience
If you want to understand why Central Asian nations are desperate for Pakistani transit routes, look at what happened when those routes slammed shut.
On October 11, 2025, Pakistan closed eight border crossings with Afghanistan following violent clashes. The economic carnage was immediate and severe. Bilateral trade dropped 40% in 2025, declining from $2.461 billion in 2024 to $1.766 billion, with Afghanistan’s exports to Pakistan falling from approximately $817 million to $505 million. Pakistani exporters bled an estimated $177 million monthly. Cement manufacturers, suddenly deprived of Afghan coal, watched input costs soar while their primary export market evaporated overnight.
The human toll was equally stark: 8,000 truckers stranded at border crossings in the Khyber Pass, living in their vehicles for months as their perishable cargo rotted and their families went unpaid. Peshawar’s once-bustling gemstone markets fell silent, shops shuttered as the flow of raw Hindu Kush minerals stopped cold. In Kabul, food inflation spiked as Pakistani pharmaceuticals, cement, and agricultural goods disappeared from shelves.
But here’s the twist that validates Pakistan’s transit corridor strategy: Afghan traders increasingly utilized Iran’s Chabahar port and overland routes through Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, with these alternative pathways mitigating the impact of political tensions and preventing major disruptions in the supply of essential goods. Afghanistan’s trade held remarkably steady despite the closure, demonstrating both the fragility of Pakistan’s monopoly and the urgent need for landlocked Central Asian nations to diversify their maritime access.
The borders reopened in January 2026, but the damage to Pakistan’s reputation as a reliable transit intermediary lingered. If Pakistan wants Central Asian business, it cannot afford to weaponize border closures for political leverage. Trade and geopolitics, as both sides learned painfully, don’t mix well.
Six Routes to Integration: Pakistan’s Connectivity Master Plan
Pakistan isn’t putting all its eggs in the Afghan basket. At the Kazan Forum in May 2025, Federal Communications Minister Abdul Aleem Khan outlined six trade routes connecting Central Asia with Europe and Russia through Pakistan—a diversification strategy acknowledging Afghanistan’s volatility while showcasing Pakistan’s geographic versatility.
The routes span multiple vectors:
The Chitral-Wakhan Alternative: Originating from Gwadar, the route would traverse through key cities across Pakistan, eventually reaching Chitral, extending through the historic Broghol Pass into Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor and linking further into Central Asian states. This northern highland route bypasses Afghanistan’s more volatile regions, though it requires significant infrastructure investment in Pakistan’s remote Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The CPEC Extension: China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the $65 billion infrastructure mega-project, now explicitly includes Central Asian connectivity. In May 2025, China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan agreed to expand CPEC into Afghanistan, with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasizing trilateral cooperation. The Quadrilateral Traffic and Transit Agreement (QTTA), signed in 1995 between China, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, provides the legal framework for bonded cargo movement from Central Asian capitals to Pakistani ports via Chinese territory.
The Iran Connector: The Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul (ITI) freight train, once operational, would provide Pakistan with direct rail access to Europe via Turkey, offering exporters reliable overland logistics while creating alternative routes for Central Asian goods heading west.
The Gwadar-Central Asia Maritime Link: Gwadar Port has already commenced cargo and shipment operations and is set to provide Central Asian nations with direct access to warm-water ports. With 20 million tons of handling capacity, Gwadar’s expansion plans include establishing five foreign shipping lines by 2026 and introducing ferry services to Gulf Cooperation Council countries, positioning the port as a transshipment hub for the entire region.
These aren’t just lines on a map—they’re Pakistan’s bid to transform its geostrategic location into sustainable economic power. Yet implementation lags vision. Border management remains politicized, customs digitalization incomplete, and security concerns unresolved.
CPEC 2.0: From Infrastructure to Industrial Integration
The evolution of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor offers a template for how Pakistan might leverage its transit position. CPEC’s Phase I (2015-2024) focused on highways, power plants, and port development—the physical infrastructure of connectivity. Phase II, launched in 2025, pivots toward industrial cooperation, special economic zones, and value-added manufacturing.
This matters for Central Asian transit because infrastructure alone doesn’t generate sustainable revenue. Pakistan needs Central Asian businesses to use its ports, not just access them. The establishment of 44 Special Economic Zones (up from seven at CPEC’s launch) creates opportunities for Central Asian companies to process raw materials near Pakistani ports before export, capturing more value from the trade flow.
Kazakhstan has already positioned 228 companies in Uzbekistan; imagine those manufacturers establishing subsidiary operations in Gwadar’s industrial zones, processing Kazakh minerals or assembling Uzbek textiles before shipping to African or Middle Eastern markets. That’s the vision animating CPEC 2.0’s focus on agriculture, industry, and mining cooperation—creating sticky economic relationships that transcend simple cargo transit.
But Phase II faces headwinds: attacks on Chinese personnel, debt servicing pressures, and bureaucratic inefficiencies that frustrated investors during Phase I. China’s renewed commitment, demonstrated during Wang Yi’s May 2025 visit, suggests Beijing still views Pakistan as strategically indispensable—but patience isn’t infinite.
The Digital Silk Road and Modern Trade Facilitation
While railways and ports capture headlines, Pakistan’s ability to function as a genuine transit hub depends equally on invisible infrastructure: customs digitalization, electronic cargo tracking, and seamless cross-border data flows.
Pakistan’s Pakistan Single Trade Window, integrated with banks, insurance, and freight terminals, aims to facilitate real-time clearance—essential for bonded trucking that allows sealed cargo to traverse Pakistan without complex customs procedures. The TIR (Transports Internationaux Routiers) system, which permits a truck to carry cargo from Karachi to Kazakhstan with minimal border inspections, requires sophisticated tracking and verification systems.
There is an urgent need to depoliticize border management, establish electronic cargo tracking, and scale up the TIR system to allow bonded trucking from Karachi to Central Asia, with customs procedures simplified through an upgraded Pakistan Single Trade Window.
The “Digital Silk Road” concept—incorporating smart manufacturing, cloud computing, and automation into CPEC’s future development—represents Pakistan’s attempt to leapfrog into 21st-century logistics. Yet as of 2026, implementation remains patchy. Torkham and Chaman border closures in 2025 exposed how quickly political tensions override institutional mechanisms, leaving thousands of trucks stranded and millions in cargo perished.
Trust, built slowly through reliable performance, can evaporate overnight through arbitrary closures. Pakistan must institutionalize trade processes to the point where they survive political turbulence—a challenging proposition in a region where “blood and trade” rhetoric still shapes policy.
The Balochistan Question: Security as the Ultimate Variable
No discussion of Pakistan’s transit potential can ignore the elephant in the port: Balochistan’s security crisis. Gwadar Port, CPEC’s crown jewel, sits in Balochistan province—Pakistan’s largest by area, poorest by development indicators, and most volatile by insurgent activity.
The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and other separatist groups view CPEC infrastructure as symbols of exploitation, claiming local communities see neither jobs nor revenue from projects that transform their homeland. Attacks on Chinese engineers forced project suspensions; coordinated assaults in February 2026 killed over 200 people, prompting Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to declare enhanced security infrastructure a top priority.
Armed attackers carried out nearly a dozen coordinated assaults early Saturday in southern Pakistan, using firearms and hand grenades, targeting a high-security prison, police posts and paramilitary facilities. Such incidents aren’t aberrations—they’re recurring reminders that Pakistan’s transit ambitions require solving Balochistan’s grievances, not just militarizing transport corridors.
Central Asian investors contemplating Pakistani routes weigh these security realities carefully. A railway attacked mid-transit, a port vulnerable to insurgent strikes, a highway requiring armed convoy escort—these aren’t conditions conducive to building commercial confidence. Pakistan must demonstrate that prosperity can reach Balochistan’s communities, turning potential saboteurs into stakeholders. Until then, security remains the ultimate variable determining whether Pakistan’s gateway potential becomes reality or remains aspiration.
Regional Competition: Chabahar, Pasni, and the Great Port Game
Pakistan doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Iran’s Chabahar Port, just 72 kilometers from Gwadar, has long positioned itself as India’s answer to CPEC—a way for landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia to access maritime routes while bypassing Pakistan entirely. India invested billions in Chabahar’s development, explicitly framing it as strategic competition with Gwadar.
Then came February 6, 2025, when President Trump issued an executive order rescinding sanctions waivers on Chabahar. The decision threw India’s Central Asian connectivity strategy into chaos while simultaneously strengthening Pakistan’s position as the most viable, sanction-free transit hub in the region.
Yet Pakistan faces competition from within its own borders. In October 2025, Islamabad proposed that the United States invest in a $1.2 billion deep-water port at Pasni, Balochistan—70 miles from Chinese-operated Gwadar. The initiative reflects Pakistan’s desire to diversify investment sources and reduce dependence on China, while offering Washington an economic foothold in the Arabian Sea.
The Pasni-Gwadar dynamic captures larger tensions: Can Pakistan balance Chinese infrastructure investment with American strategic interests? Can two competing ports 70 miles apart both thrive? Or will internal rivalry undermine the very transit hub ambitions both projects purport to advance?
For Central Asian traders, this competition could prove beneficial—multiple port options, diverse shipping lines, competitive transit rates. But it requires Pakistan to avoid the trap of treating ports as geopolitical trophies rather than commercial infrastructure. The focus must remain on cargo throughput, not great power politics.
The $1 Billion Question: Can Pakistan Deliver?
Numbers reveal Pakistan’s challenge. Kazakhstan and Pakistan set a $1 billion bilateral trade target during Tokayev’s visit. Uzbekistan and Pakistan aim for $2 billion within five years. Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan—each represents hundreds of millions in potential transit fees and trade volume.
But potential isn’t performance. Pakistan’s 2025 GDP growth hovered around 2.4%, constrained by debt servicing that consumes a quarter of government revenue. Political instability, persistent inflation, and fiscal constraints limit infrastructure investment. The ML-1 railway modernization—a multi-billion-dollar upgrade of Pakistan’s main rail line from Karachi to Peshawar—remains mired in financing negotiations years after conception.
Pakistan’s customs and logistics systems require immediate modernization, with border closures in Torkham and Chaman having significantly undermined Pakistan’s reputation as a transit intermediary. Unless Pakistan can guarantee reliable, secure, and efficient cargo movement, Central Asian businesses will hedge their bets with alternative routes through China, Russia, or the Caspian.
The opportunity is real—Central Asia’s combined GDP exceeds $350 billion, with energy, mineral, and agricultural exports demanding efficient maritime access. The question isn’t whether Central Asia needs Pakistan; it’s whether Pakistan can build the institutional capacity, security infrastructure, and political stability to capitalize on geographic advantage.
Forward Trajectories: Three Scenarios for 2030
Scenario One: The Integrated Hub
Pakistan successfully completes the Trans-Afghan Railway, modernizes its ports, digitizes customs, and establishes security protocols that reassure Central Asian investors. Transit volumes surge, generating $500 million+ annually in fees while stimulating border economies. Gwadar evolves into a genuine transshipment center, attracting Central Asian value-added manufacturing. Regional integration deepens, with Pakistan positioned as the irreplaceable connector between Central Asia, South Asia, and global maritime networks.
Scenario Two: The Fragmented Potential
Infrastructure projects advance slowly, hampered by financing constraints and security concerns. The Trans-Afghan Railway remains incomplete by 2030. Border management stays politicized, with closures occurring whenever bilateral tensions flare. Central Asian nations continue using Pakistani routes opportunistically—when convenient and cheap—while maintaining primary reliance on northern corridors through Russia and eastern routes via China. Pakistan captures some transit revenue but never realizes transformative potential.
Scenario Three: The Bypassed Gateway
Balochistan insurgency intensifies, making CPEC infrastructure increasingly vulnerable. Afghanistan’s instability prevents meaningful railway construction. Political dysfunction in Islamabad undermines investor confidence. Central Asian nations, frustrated by unreliability, accelerate development of alternative routes: enhanced Caspian shipping, improved Russian rail connections, direct China-Central Asia corridors. By 2030, Pakistan’s moment has passed, its geographic advantage squandered through inability to provide the security and stability that trade requires.
Which scenario prevails depends less on geography—that’s fixed—than on governance. Can Pakistan’s institutions overcome political turbulence to deliver reliable transit services? Can security forces protect infrastructure without militarizing regions? Can Islamabad balance Chinese investment against diversification needs?
The Verdict: Gateway or Missed Opportunity?
Stand at Karachi’s port and look northward across the Indus River valley, past the Punjab plains, through the Khyber Pass and into Central Asia’s landlocked heart. The route is shorter, faster, and cheaper than alternatives—a geographic reality no amount of geopolitical maneuvering can alter.
But trade flows along paths of least resistance, not just least distance. Pakistan offers the shortest route, yes. Yet resistance—political, security, institutional—remains high. Until border closures become inconceivable rather than recurring, until Balochistan’s grievances are addressed rather than suppressed, until customs digitalization makes cargo tracking seamless rather than opaque, Central Asian businesses will keep one foot in alternative corridors.
Pakistan’s transit potential is immense. Its current performance is inadequate. The gap between the two defines the central challenge of its economic policy: converting geographic advantage into institutional reliability.
The new Silk Road’s tollbooth is open for business. Whether it prospers or withers depends on whether the toll-takers can guarantee that goods enter, transit, and depart Pakistan as predictably as the tides that lap Gwadar’s docks. Central Asia is watching. The question is: can Pakistan deliver?
Sources
- Trend.Az – Kazakhstan and Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement
- The Astana Times – Tokayev Visit Expert Analysis
- Arab News – Pakistan-Uzbekistan $2B Trade Target
- Khaama Press – Afghanistan-Pakistan Trade Drop 2025
- Ariana News – Trans-Afghan Railway Progress
- CSCR – Chitral Wakhan Corridor Connectivity
- Afghanistan International – Pakistan Trade via China
- Profit by Pakistan Today – Six Trade Routes
- CAREC Program – Pakistan Overview
- Stratheia – Pakistan’s Trade Crossroads
