ASTANA (TCA) — As part of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s visit to Tehran on April 11, companies from Kazakhstan and Iran signed more than 60 contracts totaling over $2 billion in the spheres of metallurgy, mining, agriculture, transport, and tourism, the Kazakh presidential press service said.
Nazarbayev and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani discussed stronger trade and business ties between their countries.
The Iranian president said that Tehran and Astana would strengthen cooperation in different fields of economy, agriculture, science, culture, technology and communications, Iran’s PressTV news agency reported.
The Iranian president also said the two sides also reached agreements in the sectors of oil and gas, petrochemical industry, crude oil and petroleum products swap.
Trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Iran stood at $635 million in 2015.
As part of Nazarbayev’s visit, Tehran hosted a meeting of the Kazakh-Iranian Business Council, organized by Kazakhstan’s National Managing Holding Baiterek. The meeting gathered more than 200 companies from Kazakhstan and Iran.
Baiterek said that one of the largest agreements concluded at the forum was an agreement for construction of a $200 million plant to produce soda ash in Kazakhstan’s Kyzylorda province. It was signed between Baiterek’s subsidiary, the Investment Fund of Kazakhstan, and Iranian Kaveh Industry Group.
A large package of agreements was signed for import and export of agricultural products.
Kazakhstan’s Alageum Electric signed an agreement for supplies of transformers and transformer oil to Iran.
Kazakh and Iranian partners also agreed to build a solar power plant with a capacity of 50MW in the Almaty region.
Kazakhstan’s Air Astana will also open new flights between Kazakhstan and Iran.
Nazarbayev’s office said he will visit Turkey on April 13-14 to hold talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and attend a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
