DP World prepares October start for Tashkent terminal

DP World is expected to start construction in October on its $288 million multimodal logistics terminal in Tashkent, moving a major Central Asian infrastructure project from joint-venture planning towards physical delivery.

Tashkent mayor Shavkat Umurzakov disclosed the construction timetable in late August. The project was originally announced by DP World and Tashkent Invest in October 2025 and is being developed at the Yangi Avlod Special Industrial Zone in the Uzbek capital’s Yangihayot district.

DP World holds 85% of the joint venture, with city-owned Tashkent Invest holding the remaining 15%. The partners expect to invest more than $288 million across three development phases on an approximately 82-hectare site.

The planned terminal combines several logistics functions within one development. DP World’s specification includes a rail-connected dry port for containers and covered cargo, customs-clearance areas, vehicle storage, truck parking, Grade A warehouses, cross-docking facilities, and a dedicated freight railway station.

Phase one is designed around a rail terminal with annual capacity of 150,000 TEU and 63,000 square metres of warehousing. A further 163,000 square metres of warehouse capacity is planned in later phases, subject to demand.

The terminal will connect directly with Uzbekistan’s national railway network and major highways, while Tashkent International Airport provides an additional airfreight interface. Bringing those modes together is intended to reduce the number of separate facilities involved in transferring international cargo through the capital.

That integration is particularly important in a landlocked market. Uzbekistan cannot move export containers directly from domestic production sites to a national seaport, leaving rail and road corridors through neighbouring countries to provide the connection with maritime gateways and overseas markets.

Dry ports allow some of the functions normally concentrated around a seaport to take place inland. Containers can be consolidated, stored, transferred between truck and rail, processed through customs, and prepared for the next international leg close to manufacturers and distribution centres.

The dedicated freight station is central to the Tashkent design. Rail-connected logistics facilities become less effective when trains have to be assembled or held on already busy public infrastructure before entering the terminal, while a dedicated station gives the operator greater control over train formation, loading, and departure windows.

Annual capacity of 150,000 TEU creates room for substantial rail volumes, although utilisation will matter more than the design number. A terminal built for frequent train movements still needs sufficient customer density, scheduled services, wagon availability, and balanced import and export flows to avoid containers accumulating in storage.

The warehouse element provides more flexibility around those transport schedules. The initial 63,000 square metres can support storage, consolidation, cross-docking, inventory holding, and distribution when factory output or customer demand does not align precisely with rail departures.

Later phases add significantly more warehouse space without requiring all of that capacity to be constructed immediately. Linking the additional 163,000 square metres to demand reduces the risk of building a large logistics property programme before the freight volumes required to support it have materialised.

Customs integration could have an equally large effect on transit time. International overland freight frequently passes through several jurisdictions, and incomplete documentation or inconsistent shipment data can create delays that are difficult to recover once a train reaches a border.

Locating customs functions alongside the dry port allows more of that preparation to take place before cargo is committed to the next leg. The benefit will depend on how closely terminal systems connect with government processes and whether operators can resolve documentary problems while freight remains accessible within the hub.

The project also places logistics infrastructure directly inside an industrial zone rather than treating the terminal as a separate freight estate. Yangi Avlod is being developed around manufacturing and investment projects, creating the potential for factories to locate storage, customs, and rail activity close to production.

That model is increasingly visible elsewhere in Central Asia, where manufacturers and forwarders are building additional routing options between China, Europe, the Caucasus, the Middle East, and regional markets. Rohlig SUUS opened a Tashkent logistics subsidiary earlier this year, adding road, rail, airfreight, warehousing, intermodal services, and customs brokerage to its regional network.

CargoPoint has also expanded its China-Europe corridor through Kazakhstan while retaining operations in Tashkent, illustrating how freight providers are using several Central Asian gateways rather than designing routes around one fixed transit point.

Additional infrastructure does not remove the complexity of those corridors. Cross-border rail still depends on neighbouring networks, border procedures, locomotives, wagons, customs systems, and reliable handovers between national operators.

Gauge changes and equipment availability can also affect journey time, while route economics can shift quickly when border restrictions, geopolitical conditions, or fuel and transport costs change. A modern terminal can make the interchange in Tashkent more efficient without controlling every part of the route beyond it.

DP World is approaching the development as part of a broader move beyond traditional maritime terminals. Its portfolio increasingly combines ports with freight forwarding, contract logistics, economic zones, warehousing, and inland transport, allowing the company to control more of the journey between production sites and international gateways.

Tashkent is a useful test of that strategy because the terminal cannot rely on an adjacent seaport to generate traffic. Its value has to come from making inland freight transfers, customs processing, rail operations, and warehousing efficient enough to influence how companies route cargo through Central Asia.

The October construction start is therefore the important new milestone. The ownership structure, investment value, and design have been public since 2025; moving the project into construction creates a delivery programme against which civil works, rail connections, warehouses, equipment, and commissioning can be measured.

The next meaningful indicators will be progress on the phase-one rail terminal, completion of the first warehouse buildings, customer commitments, and the frequency of services using the site. DP World has defined the physical scale of the Tashkent hub. Construction will determine whether those plans become a working freight interchange rather than another ambitious dot on the Central Asian logistics map.