NUR-SULTAN (TCA) — Kazakhstan is set to play a pivotal role in promoting transcontinental trade as a member of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union and a reliable partner of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said at the General Debate of the 74th UN General Assembly in New York on September 24, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.
Close and constructive political dialogue among all five Central Asian countries will be instrumental for trade, economic, investment and people-to-people interaction, Tokayev said, voicing his conviction that Central Asia “is becoming a global stakeholder”.
On the same day, speaking at the Fourth Meeting of Speakers of Eurasian Countries’ Parliaments held in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan,
First President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said that his country supports the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as it is beneficial to the country’s development.
He said the number of containers transported from the Pacific Ocean to Europe through Kazakhstan and Russia are increasing every year, which means that “Kazakhstan has become a transit country effectively connecting Asia and Europe, the Northern and Southern parts of Eurasia.”
Proposed by China in 2013 to promote trans-continental connectivity for common growth, the BRI involves infrastructure development, trade and investment facilitation and people-to-people exchanges.
Kazakhstan has built and renovated 15,000 km of roads and railways in a very short period of time, which helps the land-locked nation connect to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and the Gulf, the first president said.
