Gabit Koishibayev, Kazakhstan ambassador. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
China’s experience and practices are of great importance for Kazakhstan in modernizing its infrastructure, continuing industrialization and introducing innovations, according to Gabit Koishibayev, ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan to China.
Speaking on the sidelines of the First Conference of the International Science, Technology and Innovation Forum of the Boao Forum in Macao held on Nov 9-11, Koishibayev said the world is witnessing the creation of a conceptually new model of economic development in China.
The model Koishibayev was referring to is China’s “dual circulation” national strategy. It emphasizes a two-pronged way of developing the economy, which uses the internal market as the mainstay complemented by the external market.
“Undoubtedly, the Chinese market can become an important stimulus for development of agricultural production in Kazakhstan and manufacturing of products with high added value,” Koishibayev said, adding that China’s development is one of the most important factors in ensuring the stable growth of the world economy as a whole.
For Kazakhstan, the envoy said, these changes in economic strategies by China, to a certain extent, pose a challenge that can affect the nature and content of their bilateral economic relations.
As a close neighbor of China, Kazakhstan should consider the trends, first of all, as a valuable experience and a convenient chance for effective modernization and digitalization of Kazakhstan’s own economy, Koishibayev said.
His remarks came a month after a jointly made documentary series Salem Kazakhstan (Hello Kazakhstan), featuring the economic collaboration between the two countries, aired in Kazakhstan in October. Filmed in both countries, it pictured emerging business opportunities in e-commerce, information technology and cross-border logistics, highlighting the alignment of the Belt and Road Initiative and Kazakhstan’s Bright Path new economic policy.
According to Kazakhstan’s government, a total of 55 joint Kazakh-Chinese projects with a value of US$27.6 billion are being implemented in Kazakhstan, under a bilateral framework agreement between the two countries signed in 2015.
These projects span such areas as oil and gas processing, chemistry, machine building, energy, transportation, production of building materials and agribusiness.
According to a statement from the Kazakhstan government made on Oct 9 last year, the projects will be implemented by competitive high-tech and export-oriented joint ventures formed by companies from the two countries and will create about 20,000 new permanent jobs, of which 90 percent would be filled in by Kazakhstan citizens.
Koishibayev said the cooperation of the two countries has achieved significant progress, in particular infrastructure projects such as the Kazakh-Chinese logistics center in the port of Lianyungang, the Khorgos-Eastern Gate Special Economic Zone dry port on the border with China, the port infrastructure in Aktau on the Caspian Sea coast, a new Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran rail corridor and the Western Europe-Western China international transit road corridor.
Using these new overland routes, cargo from China is now delivered to Europe at an average of 14 to 15 days, which is two to three times faster than transport by sea, he said.
The pandemic did not stop the bilateral collaboration, with these linking infrastructures having injected impetus into Kazakhstan’s cross-border trade. From January to August, the volume of rail freight traffic between Kazakhstan and China increased 30 percent to 14.2 million tons, and railway transit container traffic through Kazakhstan by 52 percent, comprising 576,000 containers per China-Europe-China route, according to the ambassador.
The growth in cargo flows is testament to how infrastructure has brought more business to the transcontinental country, Koishibayev said. “Of course, such a significant increase in transcontinental traffic brings tangible dividends to our country; for example, Kazakhstan’s income from the transit of cargo in 2019 amounted to more than US$1 billion.”
Apart from the traditional collaboration on infrastructure, the ambassador noted that the two countries are also stepping up cooperation in the fields of energy, industry, the agro-industrial complex and agricultural products, and are making great efforts to remove administrative and legal barriers that impede the growth of trade and capital flows.
Overall, Kazakhstan and China still have a lot of room to further expand cooperation in infrastructure construction and increase bilateral trade, but right now, a priority task in the bilateral agenda should be strengthening collaboration against COVID-19, the envoy said.
The pandemic has become a “catalyst” for developing so-called new infrastructure like 5G, industrial 3D printers and self-driving cars, as well as virtual assets which are China’s strengths, Koishibayev said.
