First Deputy PM meets with Azerbaijani President in Baku

ASTANA. KAZINFORM Today, First Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin has met with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, the press service of Prime Minister's Office reports.

The meeting in Baku discussed prospects for strengthening cooperation across the spectrum of trade and economic relations.

Askar Mamin spoke about the positive impact President Nazarbayev's visit to Azerbaijan earlier this year had on the development of bilateral relations and stressed that Kazakhstan views Azerbaijan as its largest strategic partner in the Caucasus region.

In his speech, the First Deputy PM also noted the high development potential of Kazakh-Azerbaijani relations. According to him, the Kazakhstan-Azerbaijan Intergovernmental Commission has developed a Roadmap on expanding trade and economic cooperation between the countries for 2017-2020.

In his turn, President Aliyev underlined the important role Kazakhstan plays in strengthening the Trans-Caspian international transport route as well as servicing the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars line.

According to Askar Mamin, the new highway and vehicle ferry in the port of Kuryk will significantly increase the freight traffic on Asia-Europe routes noting that over the 10 months of 2017, it has already increased 2.5 times and amounted to 1 million 650 thousand tons. According to him, by 2020, it is planned to increase the container port traffic to 300 thousand TEU a year.

The sides noted the successful cooperation between the two countries in transport and logistics, as well as railway engineering. According to them, the modern logistics infrastructure and high-quality service will allow the countries within the transit corridors to study new markets and attract cargo flows.

Both Askar Mamin and Ilham Aliyev stressed the need to synchronize the activities of the trading ports of Aktau, Kuryk, and Alyat and creating the necessary conditions for increasing their commercial attractiveness.

During the meeting, the sides agreed to increase trade turnover and restore the previous volumes of Kazakh grain exports to Azerbaijan of 1 million tons per year and discussed further development of cooperation in terms of investment, agriculture, and oil and gas industry.