Trade with India to jump by 40 per cent: Kazakhstan Ambassador Bulat Sarsenbayev

By Deepak Arora

NEW DELHI, Dec 9:

The new Kazakhstan Ambassador, Mr Bulat Sarsenbayev, has come to India with a clear vision and mission of enhancing trade and economic ties between the two countries.

Ambassador Bulat Sarsenbayev, who presented his credentials to the President of India, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, at a ceremony held in Rashtrapati Bhavan on Tuesday, said he plans to increase bilateral trade between the two counties by 40 per cent.

Right now the bilateral trade is little over 800 million dollars and he feels it’s much below the potential. He said the main reason for this was the logistics and high cost of transportation.

Now with the recent inauguration of Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan and Iran railway project, he hopes that the trade will increase.

The Kazakhstan Ambassador said when we linked with Turkmenistan two years ago our trade increased by 40 percent. And the new link would help resolve the logistics issue and bring down the cost of transportation. Similarly, he hoped that the trade with India would also increase with this new link.”

Ambassador Bulat Sarsenbayev said “our main task is to develop economic relations because political relations help build economic relations. Our good political relations should result in economic growth of the two countries.

The Ambassador hoped that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would visit Kazakhstan next year. Prior to that we hope to also receive External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in our country.

The visit of the Prime Minister will give new impetus to the ties between the two nations, he added.

The Ambassador also expressed the wish of Kazakh side to further develop the strategic partnership between the two countries.

The Ambassador said "we would like Indian companies to invest in Kazakhstan and Kazakh companies to do business in India. India is a big market for Eurasia, not only for Kazakhstan, but Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan. For us, India is a big market, but India is also aware of big potential of these markets.”

"One of the largest Kazakh companies, a steel production factory, actually belongs to Indian company, it is one of the largest in the world, not only in Kazakhstan," said Ambassador Sarsenbayev.

He said the Indian tea was very popular in Kazakhstan.

The Ambassador also saw a great potential in growth of tourism that could lead to consolidating economic ties between the two nations.

He said "Tourism offers multiple opportunities and leads to multiple economic benefits. The daily flight between the two counties means that more and more people are visiting each other. And these flights are mostly full. We issued about 7,500 visas.”

Ambassador Sarsenbayev said the political ties between Kazakhstan and India are good as we share similar vision and approaches to international issues, and we support each other. Recently, India expressed support to Kazakhstan to become a non-permanent member of the Security Council of United Nations. It is a great support for us," he added.

The Ambassador said "cooperation and collaboration in key sectors like oil, minerals and natural gas, was an ongoing process. Similary, we have agreements to export uranium to India. It is a live project."

In January 2009, Kazatomprom signed an agreement with India's Nuclear Power Corporation (NPCIL) to supply 2100 tonnes of uranium to India, and to undertake a feasibility study on building Indian PHWR reactors in Kazakhstan.

NPCIL said that it represented "a mutual commitment to begin thorough discussions on long-term strategic relationship."

Under this agreement, 300 tonnes of natural uranium has been supplied by Kazatomprom in fiscal 2010-11.

The Ambassador said the Kazakhstan President, Mr Nursultan Nazarbayev, has launched new economic policy called "Nurly Jol - way of the future".

He said there is special role of these messages in determining the future of the country.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev addressed the citizens of his country twice in a given year and his focus was solely on the need for regional and global development, and the attending economic challenges. His particular emphasis was on economic stabilization, and in this regard, Kazakhstan has seen India as a very important nation to do business with.