OREANDA-NEWS. March 05, 2013. Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Yerbol Orynbayev attended the annual meeting of the members of the Steering Committee of the Eurasia Competitiveness Programme of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris.

This year Kazakhstan for the first time participates in the Steering Committee as co-chair of the Central Asian Initiative of the Eurasia Competitiveness Programme. The Programme was launched in 2008 and includes two regional initiatives - the Central Asian Initiative and the Initiative for Eastern Europe and the Southern Caucasus.

At the meeting of the Steering Committee Orynbayev was officially presented by Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD and the Programme Chairman Richard Boucher as Co-Chairman of the Central Asian Initiative until 2015.

The Steering Committee summarized the results of the projects over the past year and discussed plans and priorities for 2013, including the first joint ministerial conference of the Eurasian Competitiveness Programme in June 2013. It was also noted that this year marks 5 years from the start of the Eurasia Competitiveness Programme. In this regard, all parties supported the initiative of the OECD to hold a forum of the Eurasia Competitiveness Programme in November 2013.

Following the Steering Committee meeting, these issues were also discussed during the bilateral meetings of Yerbol Orynbayev with OECD Deputy Secretary General Richard Boucher, Permanent Representative of Poland to the OECD Pawel Wojciechowski, and European Union Ambassador to the OECD Maria Francesca Spatolisano.