President?s official visit to UAE starts

ABU-DHABI. March 16. KAZINFORM /Aigul Tulekbayeva/ President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev arrived in the capital city of the United Arab Emirates on Saturday for a two-day official visit. Today the Head of the State is scheduled to have negotiations in narrow and extended formats, to participate in a session of the Business Council and in a ceremony of signing of bilateral documents.

At the same time Days of Kazakhstan Culture in UAE will be held on March 16-17. Abu Dhabi and Dubai will hold concerts of the masters of art. Citizens of Abu Dhabi will enjoy a photo exposition ?Modern Kazakhstan? and an exhibition of applied art and jewelry. As is known Kazakhstan makes a point of cooperation with the Gulf States including the UAE. According to the experts, the two countries? relationships develop in spirit of friendship and mutual respect. The UAE is the main trade partner of Kazakhstan in the region. The Kazakhstan-UAE partnership is based on trade-economic and investment cooperation. Our country attracts Arab investments for realization of projects in energy and agriculture, water supply and construction of infrastructure facilities. It should be noted that today the UAE investors are primarily interested in industrial sphere while earlier they preferred to invest in real estate. The Emirates? economy is based on production and processing of oil and gas, construction, development of communications, information technologies and banking sector, education and healthcare, harbor and airport services. In political sphere Kazakhstan cooperates with the UAE within the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia and the Dialogue of Cooperation in Asia. The UAE supports Kazakhstan?s initiatives on convocation of the Congress of the Leaders of the World and Traditional Religions and positively estimates our country?s activity within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The President?s previous visit to Abu Dhabi was made two years ago. As earlier reported, three memorandums of mutual understanding on development of partnership in energy, petrochemistry, processing industry and aluminum production were signed during a visit of Prime Minister Karim Massimov to the UAE. The documents were signed within implementation of the agreements reached by both countries? presidents. In particular, these are the memo of mutual understanding between Kazakhstan?s ?KazMunaiGaz? and IPIC International Oil Company on construction of a petrochemical venture in Atyrau, the memo of mutual understanding between the Mubadala Company and ?Tobol? Social-Entrepreneurial Corporation on development of bauxite deposits and construction of an aluminum plant in Kostanay oblast and the memo of mutual understanding between the RK Ministry of Industry and Trade and IPIC Company on establishment and development of a chemical and mineral fertilizers plant.