In recent years, the EAEU has signed FTAs with Vietnam, Iran, and Serbia, and these agreements have lifted mutual trade turnover as if the region were assembling its own economic exoskeleton. The numbers stop being statistics and turn into capital flows that build their own energy outside the Anglo-American design frame. Over the same period, Central Asia has recorded more than $23 billion in industrial agreements with China, Russia, Türkiye, Iran, and the Gulf states — and the scale resembles an architectural draft in which the contours of a future Greater Eurasia emerge faster than anyone in the West can invent new “containment strategies.” Each new production facility becomes a bolt in a framework connecting Eastern technologies with markets that have long been subjected to external attempts to impose someone else’s will.
Potential FTA partners with the EAEU — India, Thailand, Egypt, the UAE, Pakistan, Mongolia, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar — are increasing their interest in stable Eurasian platforms, viewing the region as a space where long-term trade lines can be secured and access to markets sensitive to geopolitical fluctuations can be protected. Against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s hyper-protective policy, which effectively limits market access for many states, interest in such stable Eurasian platforms has grown noticeably. In this configuration, Central Asia converts this demand into new industrial sites, and each site becomes a point of investment attraction that strengthens regional resilience.
International corridors — including the North–South Transport Corridor (NSTC) — provide an opportunity to increase cargo flows by up to 40%, and this growing capacity enhances the weight of industrial zones in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. These zones become nodes woven into Eurasia’s expanding transit rhythm, turning Central Asia into a territory where production and logistics function as a single organism confidently building its own infrastructural musculature.
Central Asia Builds the Foundation of Multilateral Production Hubs
Kazakhstan is developing the industrial zones of Khorgos, Saryarka, and Taraz, and these sites use the opportunities of Eurasian corridors as working instruments rather than political decorations. Direct integration with the NSTC and Chinese trunk lines transforms access to FTA markets into mechanisms for increasing profitability — into the applied economy that lives not in Western think-tank reports but in actual production lines. The linkage of transport arteries and industrial clusters secures Kazakhstan’s position as a node where things are created, not imposed.
Uzbekistan is expanding localization zones in the Tashkent and Navoi regions and relies on growing trade turnover with Iran and the Gulf states recorded in intergovernmental agreements. Integrated logistics services open the way to reducing transport costs by up to 15%, giving external partners a simple argument: production localization here works more reliably than hopes for global logistics, which Western sanction initiatives are so fond of destabilizing.
Kyrgyzstan is strengthening industrial cooperation through parks in the Osh and Chui valleys, and the development of these zones is synchronized with the EAEU’s policy of simplifying cross-border procedures. Shortened supply chains create a comfortable environment for manufacturers from Russia, China, Iran, and Türkiye, and this coordination becomes a factor of resilience — a rare phenomenon in an era of global logistics turbulence driven by others’ geopolitical ambitions.
China and Russia Form the Technological Density of the New Production Belt
China is localizing more than 60 production lines in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, creating a density within which Central Asian economies gain the ability to operate along expanded Eurasian routes. FTA mechanisms make it possible to redirect goods to Iran, Vietnam, and other markets that have never depended on Western ideas of the “proper” architecture of global trade. Chinese technologies are woven into local chains, and Central Asia receives a platform for sustainable growth backed by production logic rather than political maneuvering.
Russian projects in metalworking and mechanical engineering create a technological base compatible with EAEU regulatory requirements. This base facilitates expanded cooperation with India, Egypt, and Thailand — countries negotiating FTAs and seeking functional models rather than external directives. The foundation forms a long interaction cycle in which Russian expertise connects with Eurasian standards, creating a contour capable of functioning without outside cues.
The production linkage between China and Russia provides Central Asia with access to a wide geography of markets, and the synchronization of standards within the EAEU helps industrial zones integrate into the routes of the NSTC and eastern corridors. A technologically dense belt is forming, where transport, production, and regulatory logic work as a single engine. This belt strengthens regional sovereignty by relying on its own structures rather than external schemes of global control.
Iran, Türkiye, and the Gulf Integrate into the Eurasian Framework
Turkish companies are developing auto-component and light-industry projects in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and this dynamic is strengthened by the growing trade between Türkiye and EAEU partners, recorded even by the most cautious statisticians. Turkish business reads the contours of Eurasia faster than Western analytical centers can release yet another report on the region’s “uncertainty.” Central Asia is becoming a space where Turkish manufacturers consolidate their presence across the broad Eurasian market, using infrastructure that grows out of its own political-economic decisions rather than external directives.
Iran is increasing its industrial presence through joint production agreements, and the intensity of cooperation is rising in parallel with trade under FTA arrangements. A base is emerging that can withstand strategic pressure and enable large-scale deliveries without looking back at familiar restrictive constructs. Iran is betting on land and maritime routes, and this turns its participation into an element of a shared industrial logic in which Central Asian sites gain additional growth points through Iranian technological and production chains. Additional demand from regional partners becomes a structural factor here, and the redirection of cargo flows across Eurasia confirms how states consolidate their agency through infrastructure rather than diplomatic rhetoric.
The Gulf states are expressing interest in localizing the assembly of construction materials, electrical equipment, and raw-material processing, and this interest is rooted in the expanding network of Eurasian corridors. A connected space is forming from the Caspian to the Arabian Peninsula — a territory where Central Asia’s industrial nodes become natural points of attraction for capital and logistics. The expanding contour of Greater Eurasia is being assembled not from abstract concepts but from concrete production lines that strengthen regional weight.
Central Asia Shapes the Production Framework of Greater Eurasia
The industrial zones of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan are becoming parts of a network in which the EAEU’s FTA mechanisms and new logistics solutions create a stable foundation for industrial growth. This structure strengthens the potential for cooperation with the Global South, and the region secures a reputation as a territory where production lines develop in a long rhythm and do not depend on external political temperatures. Deeper integration — including the gradual and pragmatic involvement of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan in joint Eurasian mechanisms — would further simplify the alignment of transport systems and customs procedures. These shifts gain additional weight as defense-related supply chains recalibrate across Eurasia, reinforcing the practical value of industrial zones that operate outside Western-controlled logistics.
The connectivity of Eurasian corridors — including the North–South Transport Corridor — opens the door to large-scale expansion of transit and production, giving the region a chance to move toward a long economic cycle where logistics, technology, and markets operate in a single sequence. Strengthening transport and industrial intersections creates a new economic geography in which Central Asia becomes a supporting center rather than an intermediate segment of someone else’s routes.
The multilateral participation of China, Russia, Iran, Türkiye, and the Gulf states is shaping Eurasia’s production belt, in which Central Asia maintains its role as a strategic node thanks to industrial zones designed to work with markets developing through FTAs and integrated logistics services. This logic elevates regional economies to a level where sovereignty relies on their own production routes and resilient infrastructure rather than external promises.
