Kazakhstan seeks to foster trade with neighbouring markets

According to the Vice Minister, the entire legal framework is in place with the neighbouring countries such as Uzbekistan, China, Russia, as well as economic relations.

“There are intergovernmental commissions, interregional cooperation forums with Uzbekistan, China and Russia. As you know, a Kazakh-Russian interregional forum is scheduled for 7 November this year at the level of Heads of State, the issues of fostering the export and the quality of imports”, he said.

He went on to say that the Russian Federation is the main trade partner of Kazakhstan in the region, with 19.5% of the country’s total turnover, followed by China (12.3%), Uzbekistan (2.9%) and Kyrgyzstan (1%), Turkmenistan (0.1%).

“Partnership with Russia is of strategic importance for our country, therefore cooperation is developed with all subjects of the Russian Federation, with an emphasis on 11 such subjects adjacent to 7 regions of Kazakhstan. In 2018, trade turnover with those regions grew by 2%, and was $1.9 billion. The exports to the neighbouring regions keep on growing, of which 18% fall on processing industry, and commodity accounts for the remaining percentage”, he said.

The efforts are being undertaking to focus on the processing industry as 81% of the exports to Russia are commodity.

The Vice Minister has stressed that 80 items are vacant for Kazakh enterprises to export to Russia, including items of metallurgical, chemical industries, food products, uranium, you name it for $245.6 million. Kazakhstan can add 60 exporting items to China for $1.6 billion, including iron and steel flat products, semi-finished goods, ferrochrome, uranium, sulfur, oil seeds, wheat, and confectionary products.

In Central Asia, Uzbekistan is a strategic partner of Kazakhstan, to which the export of 70 items worth $270 million can be boosted.

“There are plans to come to life the project International Centre of Trade and Economic Cooperation named Central Asia. There have been several rounds of talks, as well as 5 possible locations of the Centre are predetermined. It aims at introduce small-volume and retail trade at the borders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, developing international tourism, improving logistics services and enhancing border cooperation. During its implementation it is planned to open 10 thousand jobs, and 40 thousand jobs at the exploitation stage”, Kairat Torebayev said.

He also pointed out to the ongoing works on raising the quality of Kazakh products, with a focus on technical regulations, standards, certificates, and so on.

The organization called KazakhTrade has been set up in the confines of the Trade Policy Centre in a bid to promote the export using the principle of single window, as well as to help domestic enterprises enter external markets in finding partners and concluding contracts and delivering.

Adlet Seilkhanov