Kazakhstan and Switzerland are set to expand cooperation in logistics, agriculture, energy, and finance. The two sides highlighted their mutual interest in developing joint projects. These were the key outcomes of an international trade forum held in Geneva. Trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Switzerland currently stands at around $1.5 billion, while Swiss investments in Kazakhstan have exceeded $36 billion. One Swiss investor is already implementing agricultural projects in several regions of the country. The main focus is on developing irrigated agriculture and introducing modern farming technologies.
«We have launched a pilot project of farming in Kazakhstan in three different regions. This was Kyzylorda, Almaty region, and Northern Kazakhstan regions. We receive a lot of support from local officials and from the republican level officials. The first target and the benchmark we want to reach is 150,000 hectares in nine different regions of Kazakhstan,» said Alexei Zabotin, Director of Commercial and Business Development at Harvest Agro.
International partners’ interest is also driven by Kazakhstan’s resource potential. In addition, ongoing reforms are helping to boost the country’s investment attractiveness and strengthen the confidence of foreign partners. Particular attention is being paid to the development of transport routes linking Europe and Asia. Kazakhstan plays an important role in this network and remains one of Eurasia’s key transit hubs.
«It can connect Europe or Eurasia together to China. There’s still a lot of potential, a lot of ways where you can invest in order to improve the transit times. And I think it’s the future, honestly, for a lot of trade in harvested goods and also in mining goods. It’s even better to now transport via Kazakhstan. Given that Kazakhstan is one of the seven biggest oil providers for Europe,» said Andrea Reisdorf, Director of logistics company Fracht Group.
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