Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev participated in a meeting of the
Supreme Eurasian Economic Council. The jubilee summit was
held in Moscow, as agreed upon by the parties last year. The Heads of State
discussed the main tasks and areas for further cooperation within the Eurasian
Economic Union (EAEU) in a narrow format. Later, members of delegations and
observer countries, including Cuba and Uzbekistan, also took part in an
expanded format meeting. Notably, significant results have been achieved in the
course of 10 years. Mutual trade has almost doubled, particularly, Kazakhstan’s
trade turnover with the EAEU member states increased from $16 billion in 2015
to $28.5 billion in 2023. According to the Head of State, the high level of
integration interaction is supported by the joint implementation of
infrastructure projects, the development of industrial cooperation, and
formation of a common service market, and now the main thing is to develop the
EAEU’s opportunities.
“We need to create
a unified and systematically functioning barrier-free internal market. It is
essential to fully eliminate the practice of applying hidden restrictions,
‘point solutions’, and any manual control. I believe that this should become an
absolute priority for the activity of the Eurasian Economic Commission,” said
the Head of State.
Another key task,
according to President Tokayev, is the restructuring of external trade. To this
end, it is necessary to create conditions for active entry of Eurasian products
into foreign markets and ensure unimpeded transit of goods to third countries.
Thus, Kazakhstan welcomes the decision to start negotiations with Mongolia on
the conclusion of a temporary trade agreement. There are great prospects for
cooperation with rapidly developing countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle
East.
“Cooperation with
the Global South is of special interest, given that Asia is expected to account
for 60 percent of the current growth of global GDP. To enter the Persian Gulf
markets, we propose the EAEU member countries to join the Ashgabat Agreement on
creating an international transport corridor. Kazakhstan is already joining it,”
added the Head of State.
The transportation component is crucial for entering foreign markets. It
is necessary to expand and modernize railway infrastructure and create a
seamless logistics system by harmonizing tariffs and establishing a unified
Eurasian digital corridor, President Tokayev noted. Kazakhstan is set to use
artificial intelligence in railway transportation as early as next year.
Overall, cooperation in digitalization should become the driving force of the EAEU
development, according to the Head of State. The scope of IT technology
application is extensive, it ranges from robotics to biotechnology and
agriscience. Besides, it is necessary to deepen industrial cooperation, which
will make it possible to produce high value-added products. Kazakhstan is
working on more than 150 industrial projects with the EAEU member states. It bears
noting that the negotiations resulted in signing a number of documents.
