GOVERNMENT: Kazakhstan provides assistance to African countries
Last week, Prime Minister Karim Massimov chaired a Government meeting which reviewed the progress of harvesting. According to the Minister of Agriculture Asylzhan Mamytbekov, as of September 28 there were harvested 11 million hectares of crops, or 74.7% of the total area to be harvested. This year agrarians harvested 13.2 million tons of grain with the average yield of 12 quintals per hectare, which is 0.4 quintals more than last year. Three major grain-producing regions harvested 8.1 million hectares or 71.5 percent. Harvesting campaign is planned to be completed in 10-15 days. First Deputy Minister of Energy Uzakbai Karabalin, speaking at the press conference titled "Energy security in Eurasian region: New mechanism of cooperation", which was held within the KAZENERGY Eurasian Forum. "Kazakhstan will try to strengthen its position in terms of ensuring energy security of the entire Asian region. One of the aspects of cooperation with China is the study of the shale potential of Kazakhstan," U. Karabalin said. He also added that China and the USA were the only countries that had success in extraction of this type of oil. Within the framework of the UN General Assembly' session in New York, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Erlan Idrissov participated in a number of multilateral meetings for discussing the prospects of regional cooperation. Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov held meeting with UNDP Administrator Helen Clark. The parties have adopted a new program to help 45 African countries in the implementation of the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals. A ministerial meeting in Dialogue ‘Central Asia-U.S.' format chaired by the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was notable for substantive discussion. In the course of the meeting E.Idrissov noted the significance of this new dialogue format and touched upon several issues for regional interaction. The event allowed to hold a multilateral discussion of the issues representing mutual interest both for Kazakhstan and its neighbors in the region as well as for the United States including the issues related to the development of transit-transport potential and increasing the level of its integratedness into global economic ties. A roundtable meeting on "Strengthening Cooperation in South-South Format under the UN Action Program in post-2015 development" organized by the People's Republic of China and chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping with the participation of the presidents of developing economies let the Kazakh ministerial delegation present their vision of the state and prospects of cooperation among the developing countries. Especially, the participants noted the assistance rendered by Kazakhstan to Afghanistan, African and Latin American countries in development and joint implementation of the UN Development Program and Innovative Partnership Program aimed at assisting the governments, research institutions and business communities of the developing countries, primarily, in Africa, to raise the quality of training young experts for healthcare, energy and agriculture sectors.
Speaking at the 3rd Forum of Machine Builders of Kazakhstan deputy head of the committee of science of the Ministry of Education and Science of Kazakhstan Amandyk Tuleshov informed that 57 scientific projects in the spheres of energy and machine building are implemented in Kazakhstan. The total volume of financing of the projects makes is estimated at KZT 746 million. Mrt. Tuleshov also stressed that the National Scientific Council has developed a special development strategy of science, energy and machine building sectors for 2016-2018. In Kazakhstan, 73% of national standards comply with the international base of standards, Deputy General Director of RSE "Kazakhstan Institute of Standardization and Certification" Erkezhan Amirkhanova said at a briefing in the CCS. According to her, Kazakhstan has 5725 national standards. Thus, the main principle in development of standards is compliance. She added that to date, there is a comprehensive program for transition of technical regulation to Eurocodes. It should be noted that Kazakhstan Institute of Standardization and Certification concluded agreement with the Chinese company in the field of certification of SAC.