On the margins of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Sochi (Russia), Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin met, El.kz cites primeminister.kz.
The parties discussed issues of trade and economic cooperation, investment cooperation, industrial cooperation, development of promising transport corridors and logistics infrastructure, implementation of joint projects in energy, education and cultural and humanitarian spheres.
The Prime Minister has underlined that the active political dialogue between leaders of two countries provides high dynamics on all spectrum of the Kazakhstan-Russian cooperation. At the same time the main task of the governments of Kazakhstan and Russia is the full implementation of agreements at the highest level.
As Alikhan Smailov noted, Russia is Kazakhstan's main trade and economic partner. Last year's trade turnover increased by 6%. At the same time, based on the results of the first quarter of this year, the mutual trade has increased by another 10%.
"We look forward to developing this positive trend," the Head of Government said.
He also outlined a high level of investment cooperation between the countries. So, the accumulated volume of direct investment from Russia to Kazakhstan over the past 17 years has reached about $20 billion. In turn, Kazakhstan's investment in Russia amounted to about $6 billion.
According to Alikhan Smailov, such dynamics became possible, including through industrial cooperation. In particular, leading Russian companies such as Eurochem, Lukoil, EFKO, Tatneft and others are already successfully operating in Kazakhstan.
"Kazakhstan and Russian companies are already ready to implement new innovative industrial projects. This is evidenced by a program of joint actions signed last year, which includes cooperation on 29 projects worth about $9 billion with the creation of about 12.5 thousand jobs. And in general we have more than 100 industrial cooperation projects to the total amount of $22 billion, and dozens of new projects are added every year," Prime Minister said.
For his part, Mikhail Mishustin noted that relations between Russia and Kazakhstan are based on centuries-old traditions of friendship and are aimed at developing national economies and improving the well-being of citizens of the two countries.
Cooperation with Kazakhstan is of particular importance to us, I would say, is an unconditional priority. Our trade and economic cooperation is developing successfully. Last year, mutual trade turnover reached a record level. It is important now to accelerate the creation of new production chains in industry, mechanical engineering, energy, and transport infrastructure. A good basis for this is created by the mutual complementarity of economic, production, and technological potentials of Russia and Kazakhstan," Mikhail Mishustin said.