China still Kazakhstan’s largest trading partner despite downward trend

Kazakhstan and China trade goods worth 43.3 billion US dollars in January-April this year, down 3.6% compared to the same period of last year, Kazinform News Agency correspondent reports.

According to the Economic Research Institute, China accounted for the bulk of Kazakhstan’s total volume of foreign trade – 9.0 billion US dollars, 10.3% more than the said period of 2023. Coming in second was Russia – 7.4 billion US dollars, down 14.4%. Türkiye rounded out the top three trade partners of Kazakhstan – 6.4 billion US dollars, with a growth of 14.6%.

The country’s exports stood at 25.6 billion US dollars, a 0.5% decrease from the figure of the same period of last year, which is attributable to declining exports of natural uranium (down 2.1%) and wheat (down 46.9%).

Kazakhstan largely exported crude oil – 57% of the total exports ($14.6bn), cathodes – 4.7% ($1.2bn), ores – 3.5% ($938.4mln), natural uranium – 3.1% ($868.6mln), ferrochrome – 2.3% ($663.3mln), wheat – 1.2% ($316.4mln).

The largest share of Kazakhstani exports went to Italy – 6.0 billion US dollars (up 15.5% than in last year), China – 4.6 billion US dollars (up 26.3%), Russia – 2.4 billion US dollars (down 27.6%).

According to the experts, Kazakhstan saw its imports fall 7.8% to 17.8 billion US dollars, due to reductions in imports of smartphones by 12.8%, passenger car bodies by 20.8%, vehicles with an engine capacity of over 1,500 cm3 by 23.2%.

The bulk of the country’s imports fell at pharmaceuticals 2.5% ($434.9mln), aircraft – 2.3% ($417.1mln), smartphones – 2.3% ($409.9mln), passenger car bodies – 2.0% ($363.3mln) and vehicles with an engine capacity of over 1,500 cm3 – 1.9% ($345.2mln).