Written by Li Yizhi / Translated by Li Xiaoting

Kazakhstan Making its Debut on CAEXPO Under the Belt and Road Initiative

Written by Li Yizhi / Translated by Li Xiaoting

“The reason why we are interested in China-ASEAN Expo is because there are Chinese enterprises as well as ASEAN countries. We can communicate with the companies in these countries, explore cooperation together with them,” As the adviser of Chief Representative and Governor of North Kazakhstan inKAZAKH INVEST,Turapbekov Dauren participated China-ASEAN Expo(CAEXPO) for the first time. He accepted our interview and spoke with his fl uent Chinese in the 14thChina-ASEAN Expo on-site.

The first appearance of Kazakhstan as a special invited partner on the 14thCAEXPO marked another important step of the linkage between the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21stCentury Maritime Silk Road. With the infrastructure construction along the Belt and Road improving and the great trade channel expanding constantly, the Central Asian countries deep into inland can also carry out economic and trade exchanges based on mutual benefit and reciprocity quickly with the nations and regions along the 21stCentury Maritime Silk Road at a lower cost through the CAEXPO.

Expanding ASEAN market

Speaking of Kazakhstan, the unique central Asia customs images will emerge in our mind, such as wheat, milk,grasslands, herdsmen, etc. Kazakhstan covers an area of 272.49 km2, accounting for 2% of the earth surface, it crosses Asia and Europe and is the global largest landlocked state.

It is a large inland agricultural country with abundant resources and the world’s important traditional wheat producer. ASEAN countries such as Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia are important grain consumption market in the world. This is because the wheat products usage increased, on the other hand animal protein and western food consumption also increased in this region. And wheat is the favorite feed source of aquaculture industry in Southeast Asia.

For these reasons, the wheat trade in Kazakhstan and ASEAN is promising. In the past, Kazakhstan tried to open trade route with ASEAN. The products from Kazakhstan went into China that moment, and then to ASEAN via sea and land from Lianyungang.

However, how to convert resource potential faster and more effectively into visible value with products of strong competitiveness is an issue for Kazakhstan to solve. “We tried sending the wheat from Kazakhstan to ASEAN. Though it was a good thing, the transportation was too far, which increased the cost, so we thought this cooperation was not the most cost-effective yet. This is why we are still looking for more cooperation opportunities,” Turapbekov Dauren said.

In 2017, led byKAZAKH INVEST, approximately 20 exhibitors walk into the 14thChina-ASEAN Expo with their proud products, such as wheat products, chocolate, dairy products,meat, mineral water etc. Through the “Nanning Channel”, this country which is from Central Asian of Silk Road Economic Belt, hope to have a broader connection with nations and regions along the 21stCentury Maritime Silk Road, to establish connectivity and realize more commodity circulation.

“Askar Myrzakhmetov, our First Deputy Prime Minister once said that Kazakhstan intends to establish a logistics base in Nanning,” Mr. Dauren believed that Nanning Guangxi is an important node city where China leads to ASEAN countries on the sea and land channels, and where the logistics base is built.This certainly will make the distances between Kazakhstan and ASEAN countries, as well as the countries along the 21stCentury Maritime Road closer, and will possess some strength.

Exploring industrial upgrading with “Intelligent Manufacturing in China”

China and Kazakhstan have always been exchanging in the economic and trade, investment and other fields. At present,Kazakhstan is the Chinese second largest CIS trading partner and the largest foreign investment destination country; China is the second largest trading partner of Kazakhstan and the fourth largest investment source country. In 2016, China-Kazakhstan bilateral trade was US$ 13.093 billion, of which Chinese export was US$ 8.289 billion while Kazakhstan export was US$ 4.804 billion. China and Kazakhstan also have good cooperation relationships in oil and gas resources. The two sides built China’s first cross-border oil pipeline, China-Kazakhstan Petroleum Channel Project. At the same time, China-Central Asia Natural Gas Pipeline goes through Kazakhstan.

“A Chinese enterprise called JAC, has invested and built the factory in Kazakhstan. Their products now have started exporting to Russia, Tajikistan and other countries; we can say it is a good example of the China and Kazakhstan cooperation,”Mr. Dauren said.

Dauren considered that Kazakhstan is experiencing an important transformation at present. Kazakhstan is one of the traditional agricultural countries, as well as an important wheat producer. The wheat planting area is more than 80%,so its agriculture belongs to single product one. “This kind of agriculture has a lot of risk. In general, the planting area of some agricultural product of a country should not exceed 40%,” Dauren said. Moreover, he also told us that Kazakhstan is taking measures positively to expand the planting areas of oil crops and others. Based on this, a Chinese enterprise called Aiju Group, has set up factories in Kazakhstan earlier. Its completed oil plant with annual processing capacity of 300,000 tons is the largest oil plant in Kazakhstan, and is also one of the important production capacity cooperation projects between China and Kazakhstan. “Now they have started producing rapeseed oil and exporting to China. Their rapeseed oil is of pretty good quality,” Dauren spoke highly to this enterprise.

In fact, Kazakhstan is really hope to introduce more advanced processing enterprises, to further process the large amount of self-produced wheat, honey, cooking oil, meat and freshwater fi sh, etc. exported, to increase the added value of products, and to promote industrialization of Kazakhstan.

“There are a lot of products that the Chinese people may not get used to eating, so we wish that the Chinese investors could invest in Kazakhstan, to produce high quality products combined with our produced raw materials of high quality,green and low cost, and then export them to China. This cooperation mode is good for both sides,” Mr. Dauren said.

In addition to the raw materials price, utilities fee and labor cost in Kazakhstan are relatively low; For another, Kazakhstan will give considerable preferential policies, covering tax,import and export, labor force, etc; Relevant departments will also offer enterprises some subsidies or even free booths during the exhibition.

China-Kazakhstan cultural exchange also hot

Besides economic and trade relationship, cultural exchange is also a highlight of the China-Kazakhstan bilateral relationship,which should not be ignored. The two sides have gotten very fruitful cooperation achievements in education and culture and other fields, they send out artistic performance organizations each other perennially and have established 15 pairs of friendly provinces or states and cities, among which Beijing and Astana are sister cities each other. In addition, China has set up 4 Confucius Institutes in Kazakhstan.

On June 24, 2017, AllurGroup shipped the first batch of 55 Chinese-designed JAC cars worth almost US$ 600,000 to Tajikistan

“There are a lot of students from Kazakhstan studying in China,” Mr. Dauren said. For now, China has become another big destination of studying abroad of Kazakhstan besides Russia. As a matter of fact, during the CAEXPO Kazakhstan products exhibition, Mr. Dauren’s many colleagues were able to use Chinese fluently to communicate, and some of them have been studying or working in China for a long time.

“I have been in China for 9 years. I went to work in Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Kazakhstan after completing one-year Chinese language study in Shandong University.And I still was learning Chinese while working in there. Later,I became the chief representative of North Kazakhstan ofKAZAKH INVEST,” Mr. Dauren said.

And he joked, “It’s very convenient in China, but PM2.5 is a little bit higher that in Kazakhstan.” During the talk, the “China hand” referred to similar topics and vocabularies many times,showing that he highly concerned about China.

“Even when I had not graduated yet, there were a lot of Kazakhstan customers ordered clothing, bicycles and other Chinese products with me,” Martina, a Kazakhstan girl graduated from the Guangxi University said. And she hopes to become a businessman in the future.

Martina said people in Kazakhstan have a good impression of China. TV, newspapers and other media often report that China is a country with advanced economy and skyscrapers. In 2014,she decided firmly to go to Nanning of south China alone,which is 4,000 kilometers far away from home. Speaking of the original reasons for the choice of Nanning, she said the environment of Guangxi is pleasant, the living cost is low, and it is a place to concentrate on learning because it is far away from the native language environment.