President Nazarbayev: Winning right to host EXPO was not quite simple

ASTANA. KAZINFORM It was not quite simple to win the right of hosting the EXPO, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said when interviewed by Khabar TV Channel, Kazinform correspondent reports.

The Kazakh President highlighted the importance of hosting the Expo 2017 International Specialized Exhibition.

"We supposed that about 2 million people would visit Kazakhstan throughout three months of the exhibition. [However], in only 2 months, 2.5 million have visited it. Nearly 20 million visits to the EXPO have been registered," Nursultan Nazarbayev emphasized.

During the interview, the President also spoke about the transition of the Kazakh language to Latin script. In particular, he said that the transition to the Latin script did not mean giving up on the Russian language or the Cyrillic script, and would involve, primarily, the Kazakh language alone. As the Head of State noted, issuance of all Russian publications will continue, i.e. the Russian-speaking citizens will still use the Cyrillic alphabet.

The full version of the interview with President Nursultan Nazarbayev will be shown on Khabar TV Channel on Monday at 9.30 pm.