516 joint enterprises with Korean capital run in Kazakhstan

20 March, 2019 17:34

Seoul has hosted the 8th Kazakhstan-Korea Interparliamentary Commission meeting on trade and economic and scientific and technical cooperation on March 19-20, with the Kazakh delegation led by Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development Roman Sklyar.

The delegation also had interested central government bodies, “Kazgeology”, Kazakhstan’s foreign trade chamber, Kazakh Research and Project Institute of Construction and Architecture, Kazakhstan Institute of Industry Development, “Kazakh Invest” National Company and business representatives.

In his welcome speech, the Kazakh Minister outlined that the Republic of Korea is Kazakhstan’s strategic partner in southeast Asia.

“Cooperation in the field of investment demonstrates a stable growth, with the Republic of Korea remaining one of the largest investors of Kazakhstan. So, the inflow of direct investment from Korea to Kazakhstan has made up US $5.5bn over the last 3 years, over 516 joint enterprises with Korean capital operate in the country. The year 2018 was record in terms of the turnover between the two countries, increasing by 2.2 and equaling US $3.9bn (US $1.7bn – in 2017), 3.2% up compared with 2017 (941.1 thousand US dollars),” said Mr Sklyar.

The countries have 41 Kazakh-South Korean investment projects for a total of US $4.6bn.

19 large projects for US $1.9bn have been carried out (in the areas such as logistics, machine building, food industry, electronics, oil and gas sector, mining and smelting complex).

On top of that, mutual interest and prospects for cooperation are envisaged on 16 long-term joint projects for US $1bn total in medicine and pharmacy, transport and logistics, instrument making, chemical industry, geology, metallurgy and ICT (information and communications technology).

The minister also noted every favorable condition had been created for Korean business so far, including an attractive investment climate the country has (special preferences and beneficial conditions for investment projects’ implementation), a visa-free regime for Korean citizens in Kazakhstan, direct flights. All this allows to give new vigor to business contacts and to promote trade and economic and social ties between the two countries.

DaewooBusGlobalCorporation, Hyundai, Kia, SsangYong, LG are examples of collaboration in the area of transfer of competence.

As part of the upcoming visit of Korean President Moon to Kazakhstan construction of a new automobile factory in the city of Almaty will be initiated.

There are great cooperation prospects in the subsoil use area. With this regard the minister told the Interparliamentary Commission’s participants on the Code on Subsoil providing for the simplified granting of the subsoil usage right in analogy with Australia’s model by introducing a licensed order on the principle of “First come, first serve” on solid minerals, transition to an international resource assessment order, provision of an open access to geological information and its transition to a digital format, enhancement of the provision on deposits’ liquidation to ensure the country’s environmental security when closing mines, stability warranties for the existing contracts on subsoil use.

“We observe huge prospects for cooperation in the traditional spheres such as extraction and processing of minerals, metallurgy, oil and gas, including new petrochemicals, gas-chemistry, nuclear industry, renewable energy sources, information and communications technologies. Machine building, finance, medicine, construction, and so on,” said the Minister.

During the session, the sides agreed to discuss the updating of the bilateral cooperation roadmap in trade and investments, which was signed between Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Kazakhstan’s Ministry for Investments and Development (currently – the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development) on the occasion of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s state visit to Korea in November 2016.

The Kazakh side also proposed a draft Expanded Program on new economic cooperation Kazakhstan-South Korea “Svezhiy veter” (Fresh Wind) that encompasses all the main perspective cooperation areas for the next 5 years.

This project deals with the following areas: trade, energy, infrastructure, logistics, manufacturing, agriculture, innovations and others.

The sides discussed the core provisions of the document that will be signed as part of Korean President Mr Moon’s visit to Kazakhstan.