Kazakhstan, Austria discuss prospects to enhance cooperation including within EXPO 2017
During the negotiations the sides exchanged views on a broad range of issues of the bilateral agenda, in particular political interaction, conditions and prospects of bilateral economic cooperation and consular and legal framework. The main topic of the negotiations was the Austrian chairmanship in the OSCE in 2017. Given Kazakhstan's experience in chairing this organization in 2010, the Kazakh side proposed to provide necessary advisory assistance to Vienna within preparations to its chairmanship. Both sides noted that the Kazakh-Austrian inter-parliamentary commission on trade-economic cooperation, Business council and sectoral Working Groups are effective mechanisms in the area of bilateral relations, according to MFA. Karashev also informed Mr. Linhart on progress work concerning the international exhibition EXPO 2017 and noted that the upcoming event will be unprecedented in terms of scale and is dedicated to the topic "Future Energy". "Such an exhibition will be held for the first time in the Central Asian region," he added. Provided that Austrian companies have highly developed green technologies and 75 percent of energy in Austria is generated by renewable sources, Kazakhstan's MFA Executive Secretary encouraged Vienna to actively cooperate in this area. Upon the negotiations the sides confirmed their intentions to continue to find new mutually beneficial prospects of interaction in all the aspects of bilateral relations, as well as to complete the existing joint projects.
