Stadler Rail Wins Billion-Franc Night Train Order From Kazakhstan

It's shift change time at the Stadler Rail factory in Astana, Kazakhstan. A good 400 employees have recently been working here on almost 600 carriages for night trains. Kazakhstan wants to expand its railway infrastructure. The Thurgau-based railway manufacturer Stadler Rail is also helping with this. The order is worth over CHF2 billion ($2.5 billion).

Phillip Brunner, head of Division Central Europe at Stadler Rail, rushes from meeting to meeting this evening.“We were able to take over the plant here and rebuild it accordingly,” he says.

Brunner already has experience in setting up factories in post-Soviet countries. Among other things, he helped set up the plant in Belarus. Stadler had to abandon the factory due to the sanctions against the country.“Nevertheless, we were able to benefit from Minsk,” says Brunner. Dozens of employees have been taken on board; the plant manager here in Kazakhstan, for example, is a Belarusian.“I've been working with Vladimir for over 12 years now,” says Brunner.

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Kazakhstan wants to diversify its economy, become less dependent on oil and gas, its main export, and promote tourism, for example. Swiss companies should also help in this endeavour. According to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), Switzerland ranks third in terms of investment in the country. Around 40 Swiss companies are active in the country. But more are to come.

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This is why Economics Minister Guy Parmelin travelled to the capital Astana for the Swiss-Kazakh Business Forum.

“I am here today to deepen relations between our countries,” he said in front of the assembled Kazakh ministers, Swiss lobbyists and company bosses. It is important to Parmelin to hear directly from local companies about the problems they encounter.“That way we can see whether we can improve the conditions for Swiss companies.”

Relations with gold in particular have deepened, albeit with a few question marks, as our research showed:

This content was published on Sep 3, 2024 Switzerland's imports of gold originating in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have boomed since Russia attacked Ukraine. Trade data and expert analyses suggest some could be surreptitiously coming from Russia in violation of sanctions.

Swiss company bosses are interested. Markus Menzi from the cable car company Bartholet is interested in infrastructure projects in the south of the country.“Kazakhstan is a future market for us. There are interesting tourist areas and there is also potential for our products in urban transport,” he says.

The Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche is also active in the country. Recently, medicines produced in Switzerland have been packaged in Kazakhstan. It was forced to do so: the country demands that a certain amount of added value is created locally.