Against the backdrop of deep global supply chain restructuring, Central Asia has evolved from a “potential alternative region” for Chinese enterprises going global into a real market with verifiable commercial value. By 2025, China’s cumulative investment in Central Asia has exceeded US$30 billion, and its strategic positioning is rapidly shifting from a single resource reserve area to a platform for diversified economic integration and industrial collaboration.
Located at the geometric center of China, Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, Central Asia serves as a core hub for Eurasian overland connectivity. Against the backdrop of global supply chain diversification and rising uncertainty in maritime transportation, the region’s corridor value has become unprecedentedly prominent. The China-Europe Railway Express, the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, and the under-construction China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway together form a major land artery for China’s westward opening, significantly reducing logistics times and costs between China, Europe, and the Middle East. The convening of the Second China-Central Asia Summit in June 2025 further deepened regional institutional coordination, laying a political foundation for long-term and stable cooperation.
In the past, China-Central Asia cooperation primarily revolved around energy and mineral resource development. Today, this single model has been broken. Central Asian countries are generally entering a period of accelerated industrialization and urbanization. A demographic structure where over half the population is under 35, a continuously releasing domestic market, and government-promoted industrial upgrading policies have created systematic opportunities across multiple sectors, including manufacturing, urban construction, and consumer services. Local governments’ attitude toward foreign investment has also shifted from “bringing in projects” to “selecting partners,” indicating that the market has entered a mature development stage.
Chinese investment in Central Asia has followed a clear evolutionary path: small-scale commercial cooperation dominated the 1990s and 2000s; the period following the 2000s saw a shift into resource development driven by rising energy demand; and after the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, large-scale infrastructure and energy projects became mainstream, building the foundational framework for regional cooperation.
In recent years, the investment structure has undergone significant changes, with industrial manufacturing, e-commerce, and the digital economy becoming new growth points. Data shows that the number of Chinese-invested enterprises in Uzbekistan surged from 2,337 in 2023 to 5,044 in early 2026, doubling in just two years; Kazakhstan currently has nearly 7,000 Chinese-invested entities, with approximately half engaged in trade, manufacturing, and services.
This transformation means that Chinese enterprises need to adjust their going-global strategies: shifting from reliance on intergovernmental agreements to market-driven competition, and from single-project operations to industrial chain-coordinated layouts. For private enterprises, opportunities are more concentrated in manufacturing, building materials, home furnishings, and lifestyle services that meet local needs.
The investment environments of the five Central Asian countries differ significantly. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are the most mature and representative markets, each representing complementary development logic. Kazakhstan has long ranked first in economic size in Central Asia. Its core advantage lies in its corridor and regional node value. Relying on the China-Europe Railway Express and the China-Kazakhstan Production Capacity Cooperation Demonstration Zone, it holds significant potential in logistics hubs, new energy, and power system upgrades. Uzbekistan, on the other hand, is Central Asia’s most populous country, with 38 million people and a 50% urbanization rate driving strong domestic demand.
Taking these two countries as examples, both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have introduced highly competitive investment incentive policies. Kazakhstan offers qualifying projects in special economic zones a 100% exemption from corporate income tax, land tax, and property tax, as well as exemptions from VAT and customs duties on imported equipment and materials. The duration and scope of these benefits may extend up to 10 years, depending on the type of tax and project’s eligibility.
Uzbekistan adopts a flexible, investment-size-driven model, granting tax exemptions ranging from 3 to 10 years depending on the investment amount, complemented by currency liberalization, “one-stop” business registration services, and industrial land guarantees. Successful localization practices also provide reference models for enterprises. BNBM’s gypsum board production base in Uzbekistan, with an annual capacity of 40 million square meters, achieved profitability in its first year of operation, validating the feasibility of the local manufacturing model.
Over the next 5 to 10 years, Central Asian investment will usher in structural growth centered on high value-added and sustainable demand. Four major sectors—manufacturing, renewable energy, transport and logistics, and agribusiness—will become the core growth frontiers for Chinese investors:
Although traditional extractive industries will remain important, their share in total investment will continue to decline. The coordinated development of these four sectors will define the new frontier for mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Central Asian countries.
Central Asia in 2026 is not a high-explosive speculative market but a steadily growing region undergoing structural reshaping. For Chinese enterprises, the key question is no longer “whether to enter” but rather the precise selection of which country to enter, which industrial segment to target, and which capital structure to adopt. True success will belong to those enterprises that can transcend short-term project thinking, deeply embed themselves into the local industrial system, and achieve the transformation from “project participant” to “long-term co-builder.”
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