Kazakh PM partakes in CIS Heads of Government Council in Dushanbe
The Republic of Tajikistan presides in the Commonwealth of Independent States this year. Before the start of the Council's meeting, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon received the heads of government delegations. There, the sides discussed plans for joint work, as well as the forthcoming meeting of the Council.
Traditionally, the meeting was held in a narrow and extended format.
In a narrow-format meeting, the heads of delegations exchanged views on topical issues of economic cooperation within the framework of the Commonwealth and resolved a number of organizational issues. Information on the progress of negotiations on the draft Agreement on Free Trade in Services was also reported. The next meeting of the Council of CIS Heads of Government will be held this autumn in Astana.
In addition, the Kazakh side raised the issues related to the need for modernization and improvement of the Commonwealth under the forthcoming renewal of the CIS Further Development Concept and the Plan for the implementation of its key measures initiated by Head of State Nursultan Nazarbayev at the CIS Council of Heads of State in Sochi on October 11, 2017.
The main topics of the extended meeting were the issues on ensuring the further strengthening of trade and economic relations between the member countries. They considered the tools regulating cooperation in the field of intellectual property, innovative development of power engineering, electronic and electrical equipment waste management, interstate standardization, and customs.
A number of documents were signed within the CIS Heads of Government Council meetings.
Within the framework of the Council, Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev held bilateral meetings with the heads of government of the Russian Federation and the Kyrgyz Republic.
During the meeting with his Russian Counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev discussed topical issues of bilateral economic and trade relations, cooperation in energy, industrial and customs policy.
For reference: Last year the trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Russia increased by 25.6% ($16 billion) as compared to 2016. Exports increased by 31.1% and amounted to $4.5 billion (2016 - $3.5 billion). In January-March 2018, the trade turnover amounted to $3.9 billion, which is 8.3% higher than the same period of the previous year ($3.6 billion), while exports from Kazakhstan to Russia grew by 7.3% to $1.2 billion.
Meeting with the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Muhammetkaliy Abulgaziyev, Bakytzhan Sagintayev considered topical issues and prospects for the further development of the Kazakh-Kyrgyz cooperation in the socio-economic, trade, investment, border and customs spheres.
The Prime Ministers highlighted the importance of the agreements concluded by the Presidents of the two countries in Astana within the framework of the working meeting of the heads of the Central Asian states in March this year and during the official visit of Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov in December last year.
At the same time, the discussion covered issues of implementation of the Roadmap for bilateral economic cooperation signed in Astana on December 2, 2017, and issues of participation in the upcoming meeting of the CIS Council in Kazakhstan.
For reference: Last year, the commodity turnover between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan increased by 13.4% compared to the same period in 2016 (2017 - $ 758.4 million, 2016 - $668.6 million), while exports from Kazakhstan grew by 15.1% and amounted to $503.2 million. According to the results of the first quarter of this year, this trend was preserved, and the growth amounted to 16.6% (turnover in January-March 2018 - $179.4 million). Exports from Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan for January-March increased by 27.9% to $131.7 million.
The trade turnover between Kazakhstan and the CIS countries grew by almost 25% last year and amounted to more than $22 billion. In the first quarter of 2018, trade with the CIS countries grew by another 10% to $5.3 billion.