A meeting was held in Almaty between the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov and the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin. The talks were held on the eve of the meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council, El.kz reports with reference to the press service of the Government.
The parties discussed a wide range of issues of interstate cooperation in the fields of trade, investment, industrial cooperation, energy, transport and logistics, agriculture and education.
In particular, the issues of transit of Kazakh coal through the territory of the Russian Federation, as well as the elimination of problems in terms of the entry of Kazakh carriers into Russia were discussed in detail.
Alikhan Smailov stressed that thanks to the political will of the heads of the two states, relations between Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation are developing progressively, based on the principles of mutual respect.
"Russia is one of Kazakhstan's main trade and economic partners. This is evidenced by the impressive volume of trade, which amounted to $24 billion in the first 11 months of last year alone," he said.
According to the head of government, Kazakhstan pays great attention to the development of interregional and cross-border cooperation. The Forum of Interregional Cooperation is an effective platform in this direction.
"I am sure that this year will be eventful in terms of joint events and mutual contacts at various levels. The Government of Kazakhstan is ready to develop full-scale and mutually beneficial cooperation in all areas," Alikhan Smailov said.
Mikhail Mishustin thanked for the traditional hospitality and noted that Russia attaches priority to strengthening mutually beneficial relations with Kazakhstan.
"We are jointly implementing major investment projects in industry, automotive, energy, petrochemicals, transport infrastructure, the digital economy and many other areas. We propose to speed up the construction of new production chains. A good basis for this is created by the mutual complementarity of the economic, production and technological potentials of Russia and Kazakhstan," the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation said.