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Kazakhstan, EU mull co-op issues

4 May 2018 17:12 (UTC+04:00)
Kazakhstan, EU mull co-op issues

By Kamila Aliyeva

Kazakh Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev held a meeting with head of the European Union delegation to Kazakhstan Traian Christie.

They discussed issues of implementing the Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EPCA) between Kazakhstan and the EU, expanding trade and economic cooperation and attracting foreign investment.

The Agreement, signed in 2015, has so far been ratified by majority of the EU Member States and received consent from the European Parliament. The EPCA is a next-generation document that covers 29 fields of cooperation. New collaborative structures have already been created – the cooperation committee in the “trade configuration”, a subcommittee on customs issues, and a subcommittee on energy, transport, environment and climate change.

The implementation of the new Agreement will let increase trade volume significantly firstly by high-tech products, and generate new opportunities for economic growth and job creation.

The European Union is Kazakhstan's largest trade and investment partner, accounting for about half of the country's foreign trade and direct investments.

Kazakhstan's foreign trade turnover with the EU countries in January-March 2018 amounted to $9 billion (January-March 2017 - $6.8 billion). The volume of trade between Kazakhstan in 2017 amounted to about $30 billion.

For 2017, gross inflow of foreign direct investments from the European Union has reached $9.8 billion from $20.7 billion of all involved. The main investing countries are the Netherlands ($ 4.4 billion), Belgium ($ 960.6 million), France ($ 595.3 million), Great Britain ($ 418.8 million), Germany ($ 280.8 million) and Luxembourg ($ 276.8 million).

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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