Kazakhstan intends to boost trade with Kyrgyzstan to $1 billion
"Despite the 13-percent growth of our turnover within the first 10 months of this year, we should actively use the reserves we have. To that end, it is necessary to explore the possibility of expanding our trade nomenclature. The primary target we set is to increase the mutual trade to $1 billion by 2020," President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said following the talks with his Kyrgyz counterpart Sooronbay Jeenbekov.
Nursultan Nazarbayev reminded that Kazakhstan is one of the key investors in the Kyrgyz economy, and, in this vein, the President highlighted the importance of the next steps for creating the most favorable conditions for investment and the investing companies of the two countries.
"We discussed the opportunity of establishing a Business Council of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan so that to improve the investment cooperation and intensify the trade-economic relations. That platform would make it possible to strengthen direct contacts between economic entities of our countries, enhance the business partnership, and would help resolve arguable points between enterprises," the President underlined.
The Head of State also noted that during the talks the sides discussed the prospects for the two countries' cooperation in digital technologies, and, moreover, the governments were charged with exchanging their experience in that field and exploring the opportunity of implementing joint projects.
Nursultan Nazarbayev said that water and energy cooperation, intensification of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea was an important topic of the negotiations. "We reaffirmed that the water resources of the transboundary rivers of Central Asia should be the common heritage that would strengthen the friendship and trust between our countries and be used in the interests of all participating countries. The fate of dozens of millions of people, stability, and well-being of the entire region depends on the efficient use of that," Nursultan Nazarbayev said.
During the talks, the sides also exchanged views on the current issues of the regional and global agenda, discussed the issues of collaboration within international organizations, highlighted the importance of ensuring security in Central Asia, confirmed the similarity of the two countries' stances on all key issues of regional politics including the regional cooperation of the neighboring fraternal countries.
"We have discussed all the issues that needed to be discussed. There are no untold, hidden or any other issues that may pose any obstacles to our relations in the future. And, in this trust-based open environment, we agreed that the commission and the groups we are to organize will make up a special protocol on today's meeting, and we will get under control each item of these arrangements' fulfillment," Nursultan Nazarbayev concluded.
