OREANDA-NEWS. On November 30, 2007 President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahayan discussed prospects of developing trade economic cooperation between Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates, reported the Presidential website www.akorda.kz.

During the meeting, President Nursultan Nazarbayev expressed his satisfaction with the agreements achieved during the working visit to the UAE in November this year. The sides agreed to implement a number of large projects in petroleum chemistry, metallurgical and gas industries. Kazakhstan offers to establish joint investment fund with ownership capital of 4 billion dollars in order to finance large projects in Kazakhstan.

In the framework of the agreements, the leadership of the Ministry for Energy and Mineral Resources, Ministry for Industry and Trade, National Holding Samruk and National Oil and Gas Company KazMunayGas met with the delegation of the Abu Dhabi International Company for Oil Investments.

At the meeting, the sides underscored that relations between Kazakhstan and the UAE are developing in the atmosphere of friendship and mutual respect. This assist to the growth of economic cooperation and to the participation of businessmen from the Emirates in large investment projects in Kazakhstan. The projects include the construction of the Aktau City on the Caspian Sea and of the multifunctional complex Abu Dhabi Plaza in Astana.

The leadership of the UAE has been offering support to Kazakhstan since the moment of obtaining independence by the young republic. The allocation of 15 million dollars on building an administrative object in Astana as a grant to Kazakhstan was an important political gesture. The Abu Dhabi Development Fund sponsored the reconstruction of the Karaganda-Astana road (namely, the Karaganda-Osakarovka link costing some 22 million dollars). This year, the leadership of the UAE decided to grant funds to the construction of a maternity hospital and a mosque in Shymkent.

The two countries have close stands on major international and regional problems, and this forms grounds to strengthening bilateral interaction in the global scene. The UAE leadership supports Kazakhstan’s initiative on establishing the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and positively evaluates activities of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the CIS and SCO.

The trade turnover between the two countries was equal to 153 million dollars in 2006 (Kazakhstan’s export and import were estimated at 80 and 73 million dollars respectively). The trade turnover between these countries reached 89 million dollars over January-September of 2007.

The UAE is the main trade partner to Kazakhstan in the region. The development of trade and tourism demonstrates that these areas could be the main directions of cooperation between our countries.