Astana hosts Kazakh-Czech business forum

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ASTANA. KAZINFORM Kazakhstan and Czech Republic note insufficient development of bilateral trade-economic relations which are linked primarily to the global economic crisis. The sides stated it during the Kazakh-Czech Business Forum held in Astana on Monday.

According to Vice Minister of Energy Bakytzhan Dzhaksaliyev, 185 Kazakh-Czech joint enterprises have been registered in Kazakhstan for now. 107 of them are functioning today. In his words, Czech Republic exports cars, spare parts, electrical equipment, furniture, glass and pharmaceutical products to Kazakhstan.

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"Machine building is an important area for Kazakhstan in our bilateral relations, namely increasing the number of Czech machine-building technologies. It is no secret, that this sector is one of the strongest sides of the Czech economy comprising the fundamentals of its export potential. We have already received certain results. I mean JSC Asia Avto and Skoda Avto of the Czech Republic. We have launched assembly of Skoda Octavia and President Edition cars. Beginning from 2005, the number of manufactured Skoda cars made 19,888 worth nearly 70bln tenge," Dzhaksaliyev said.

Nevertheless, as the Vice Minister noted, we should admit that the partnership between Kazakhstan and the Czech Republic do not meet the countries' high potential. The indicators of commodity turnover between our states remain low, one of the reasons of which is low prices for crude materials and energy.

"The gross inflow of direct investments of the Czech Republic to Kazakhstan made only $186mln from 2005 to Sep 2016. We have created favorable conditions for fruitful cooperation. The Kazakh-Czech intergovernmental commission plays a key role in this process, namely in the economic, industrial and scientific-technical cooperation. The regular 9th meeting of the commission will be held in Prague, on February 28. 16 international treaties have been signed by our countries to date," he added.

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Dzhaksaliyev informed Czech businessmen about investment climate of Kazakhstan and the conditions created for the development of business which allowed to attract more than $200bln of direct foreign investments in recent 10 years.

"We will welcome the participation of the Czech business in development projects of the domestic science-intensive export-oriented production as per the priorities of our industrial-innovative policy," he concluded.

In turn, Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament Jan Hamáček emphasized that the Czech delegation had arrived in Kazakhstan "to give confirmation to the political dialogue between our countries." In his words, similar meetings have become regular.

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"Kazakhstan is our largest trade partner in the Central Asian region and real opportunities of our cooperation are much higher than those we are using now. In the past two years, we have noticed reduction of our commodity turnover. The products manufactured in the Czech Republic and in Kazakhstan have lost their attractiveness and quality. These are declining oil prices and other crude materials and trade-economic sanctions against Russia. I am confident that there are opportunities which our countries can use and develop," the Speaker of the Lower Chamber of the Czech Parliament said.

In turn, CEO of the Kazakh Chamber of Commerce Ayan Yerenov said that he expects achievement of the agreements on establishment of joint enterprises following this meeting. "The negotiations are underway. Czech businessmen would like to move to the markets of Russia and China through Kazakhstan," he stressed.

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Commodity turnover between Kazakhstan and China in 2016 made $170mln.

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