CAREC Transport Corridor

The CAREC Transport Corridor is a regional network of transport infrastructure designed to connect Central Asia, South Asia, and East Asia.^[1] The Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program was established in 1997 by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to encourage economic cooperation among countries in Central Asia and nearby parts of Transcaucasia and South Asia.^[2] CAREC brings together Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.^[1]

Overview of the CAREC Program

The CAREC region is situated at the heart of a rapidly growing and integrating Eurasian continent.^[3] The CAREC Transport Strategy (CTS) 2030 was endorsed by the CAREC Ministers in November 2019.^[3] To date, more than $16 billion in investments have been approved for over 100 CAREC-related projects.^[1] By December 2025, the program had mobilized $57.9 billion in investments to help establish multimodal transportation networks.^[4] The program provides timely data and publications on its accomplishments in four priority sectors: transport, trade facilitation, energy, and trade policy.^[5]

Strategic transport corridors

The six CAREC corridors link key economic hubs within the region to one another.^[6]^[12] They connect landlocked CAREC countries to other Eurasian and global markets.^[6] These corridors aim to integrate infrastructure, logistics, digital connectivity, energy cooperation, and climate resilience.^[7] 6c, connects European countries to the Middle East and South Asia.^[8]^[13] The program uses the Corridor Performance Monitoring and Measurement (CPMM) mechanism as an empirical tool to assess and track the time and cost of moving goods across borders and along the corridors.^[9]^[14]

Afghanistan's role and connectivity

Afghanistan joined the Cross-Border Transport Agreement (CBTA) at a meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, in August 2011.^[1] The CBTA aims to ease the movement of goods, vehicles, and people across international borders.^[1]^[15] It facilitates cross-border and transit trade to increase business activity and investment in CAREC countries.^[1]^[16] Afghanistan’s accession is considered a milestone in transforming a key transport corridor into an economic corridor.^[1] The agreement serves as a pilot project for removing barriers to efficient cross-border transport.^[1]

Afghanistan is a key participant in Corridor 5, which connects East Asia and the Arabian Sea through Central Asia.^[1] It then passes through Kurgan Tyube, Dushanbe, and Karamik from the border crossing of Nizhni Pianj in Tajikistan.^[19] The corridor also runs to the border of the PRC via the Kyrgyz Republic’s Karamik, Sary Tash, and Irkeshtam.^[1]^[17]

Infrastructure and multimodal transport

The CAREC corridors cover 3,600 km of roads and 2,000 km of railway.^[1] The region's transport infrastructure includes a total of 264,000 km of roads.^[10] This includes 2,066 km of motorways, 11,321 km of national highways, and 78 km of expressways.^[10] Rail tracks total 11,713 km.^[10] The network also includes 44 airports, 13 of which are international, and 3 commercial sea ports.^[10]

Economic impact and trade facilitation

The CAREC Transport Corridors aim to connect Central Asia with global markets.^[7]^[18] For example, Corridor 5 provides the Xinjiang province of the PRC and landlocked Central Asian countries with the shortest trade route through the Karachi Port.^[11] The agreement to include Afghanistan in the CBTA aims to streamline customs inspections and reduce requirements for transferring shipments between vehicles.^[1] This is intended to facilitate cross-border and transit trade, thereby increasing business activity.^[1]