Kazakhstan, Slovakia to boost trade turnover - PM Sagintayev
According to Sagintayev, Slovakia is one of the key partners of Kazakhstan in Central Europe. "Both countries have much in common - industrial-agrarian orientation of economy, well-developed human capital, advantageous geographical location and, of course, hospitality," he said.
He reminded that Kazakhstan and Slovakia are going to mark the 25th anniversary of their diplomatic relations this year. "In 25 years of friendship and partnership, the two countries have built a trustful political dialogue. Favorable conditions have been created for the development of trade-economic and cultural-humanitarian cooperation and the regulatory-legal framework has been widened," he said.
The Kazakh Prime Minister expressed satisfaction with consistent development of cooperation in trade-economic sector. "More than 60 joint enterprises are working today in Kazakhstan. We are keen to further broaden trade-economic and investment ties with your country. We have provided all conditions for that. Kazakhstan today is a new opportunity and a huge potential for mutually beneficial business," Sagintayev noted.
In his words, Kazakhstan has attracted as much as $250 billion of direct foreign investments. He underlined that the government of the country welcomes investments in various sectors of economy, in particular, in processing and non-resource-based sectors.
"Today's forum demonstrates growing mutual interest of our businessmen in joint work. I invite Slovak business to actively collaborate with us and implement new joint projects. The trade-economic relations between our countries are being improved. However, the $53 million volume of trade turnover is not enough. We have a great potential. The heads of the intergovernmental commission were entrusted with a task to work more closely and search for various forms of cooperation," he concluded. 
In turn, Peter Pellegrini assured again that business communities of Slovakia are eager to work in Kazakhstan. He emphasized that the Government of Slovakia is ready to provide all-round support to the development of mutual economic relations between the countries.
"I am confident that both Kazakhstan and Slovakia can offer wide opportunities for a long-term development of our cooperation. Your country offers quite attractive economic conditions to the Slovak entrepreneurs. When we speak on economic relations, we say that Kazakhstan is a priority country for Slovakia in the Central Asian region. Renewable energy, car-making industry, engineering, manufacture of equipment for processing industry, water purification technologies and food industry possess the biggest potential for cooperation," he emphasized.
As many as 120 representatives of the Kazakh and Slovak business communities gathered in Astana for the forum today.
The forum discussed the issues of intensifying and strengthening the bilateral trade-economic cooperation of the two countries in investment, transport and transit, IT and innovations and agricultural sectors.
Foreign trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Slovakia in 2017 made $53 million and increased by 39.5% compared to year 2016.