The sound of rock drilling deep in the Tianshan Mountains is rewriting the logistics map of Central Asia. With the completion of the first tunnel in the Kyrgyzstan section of the China Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan Railway, this landlocked country surrounded by mountains has for the first time truly placed itself at the crossroads of the Eurasian continent. Outside the steel channel, another invisible channel is also accelerating its formation. On October 21, 2026, the Kyrgyzstan delegation walked into the China Association for Trade in Services and sat around a table discussing how to keep up with the pace of steel in services.

From railway to market

The discussion starts with a set of judgments. At present, China's goods trade has a solid foundation, and the service industry has become a key engine for stabilizing employment and promoting growth. Compared with the global and developed economies, it still has enormous growth potential.

The cards brought by Kyrgyzstan are also solid: as a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, Kyrgyzstan relies on a duty-free market covering a population of 180 million, coupled with the logistics dividends brought by the construction of the China Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan railway. More than 4000 local manufacturers have expressed their intention to cooperate with China. The railway delivers goods, and the service determines the cost and efficiency of the goods going out. Both parties have agreed to focus on new industries and tracks such as education, healthcare, cultural tourism, cross-border e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and new energy.

Three tiered architecture with two measures

How does consensus become a project? Zhong Zeyu, Secretary General and Secretary General of the China Association for Trade in Services, introduced the 3+2 cooperation promotion mechanism launched by the association to the Jilin side.

The three-layer architecture connects from top to bottom: the government promotes the formation of cooperation initiatives, the business association consolidates cooperation consensus, and the enterprise regularly builds docking and cooperation channels. Two practical measures are being implemented simultaneously: one is to provide training on service trade assistance to Central Asian officials and market entities, and the other is to build a platform for selecting service export products, so that high-level consensus can truly be transformed into practical and operational cooperation projects. This approach is in line with China's continuous provision of training opportunities and cultivation of new forms of service trade within the framework of Central Asian cooperation.

Two projects are waiting to be implemented

Former Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan, Felix Kulov, brought Kyrgyzstan's key intentions and expressed a strong willingness to deepen cooperation.

One of them is the Digital Trade and Logistics Center project, which plans to create a one-stop comprehensive service carrier, providing legal, tax, and product certification services, building a warehousing and distribution center, a digital port logistics system, and a multilingual customer service center. The second is the Ashutol Gold Mine project located in Issyk Kul, with a mining area of approximately 43 square kilometers and associated gold and copper resources. Basic exploration has been completed in the early stage, and professional institutions are planned to be hired to verify resource reserves according to international standards, and to orderly promote mining rights acquisition, license restoration, drilling exploration, and supporting infrastructure construction.

The association stated that it will organize experts to conduct professional audits of the project, coordinate with member units to connect project resources, hold special symposiums for gold mining and digital logistics project members on different themes, and strive to promote the implementation of the project.

In 2025, China's goods trade with the five Central Asian countries will surpass the $100 billion mark for the first time. As the passage for goods becomes wider and wider, the service passage has just begun to depart. Next, the association will continue to play the role of a bridge and link between business associations, connecting the government, business associations, and enterprises, promoting early docking and landing of China Kyrgyzstan service trade projects, and assisting in the innovative development of service trade in the China Central Asia region.Editor/Yang Meiling