ASTANA (TCA) — Representative of Kazakh Invest National Company for Investment Support and Promotion in Dubai, Ilya Urazakov, spoke at a meeting with representatives of 14 leading business publications of the United Arab Emirates about prospects and potential of investment and economic cooperation between Kazakhstan and the UAE, Kazakh Invest reported on September 3.
“Historically, our countries have very warm and strategic relations. But the [trade] turnover and investment cooperation could be much higher. According to the opinion of experts from both countries, the potential for economic cooperation can be at least tripled,” Urazakov said.
According to the information for 2017, commodity turnover between the two countries approached the level of 680 million US dollars and the volume of investments in Kazakhstani projects amounted to about 4 billion dollars, while the total amount of foreign investment in the country for the last 10 years has reached 270 billion dollars (63% of all investments in Central Asia).
As part of the presentation of the Investment Strategy of Kazakhstan for 2018-2022, Urazakov noted that today Kazakhstan actively invites the Middle East business to cooperate in various fields of the economy and the most promising sectors for cooperation with the business of the United Arab Emirates are such sectors as agriculture, subsoil use, petrochemicals, and tourism.
According to Urazakov, 220 million hectares of agricultural land in the heart of Eurasia and exemption from taxes is what Kazakhstan offers today for investors from the UAE, within the framework of the investment cooperation program.
“Today there is no doubt that cooperation between Kazakhstan and the UAE will be extremely successful. Our countries are interested in each other. The UAE has the latest technology, excellent management and international expertise. Kazakhstan is ready to offer in addition to the richest resource base, conditions for high-quality processing, full state support and, of course, access to new markets. Our country is a window that opens access to a new, actively developing market of 500 million people, and these are the countries of Central Asia, the territory of Western China, Russia and the Caspian states,” Urazakov said.
