China Development Bank has recently issued the first tranche of a 180 million yuan ($25 million) loan to Kazakhstan's state-owned railway company for the procurement of 200 locomotives from Chinese train maker CRRC Corporation Ltd, the bank said in a statement on Thursday.

China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China have jointly established a syndicated loan facility in February to provide a total 3.56 billion yuan in loan for the aforementioned procurement of locomotives, according to the statement.

The first batch of trains has been in operation now, which will effectively improve Kazakhstan's railway transport capacity and provide strong support for the high-quality development of the China-Europe freight train service and the construction of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, the bank said.