OREANDA-NEWS. May 06, 2014. Minister of Economy and Budget Planning of Kazakhstan Yerbolat Dossayev met with Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization Mr. Li Yong within the 47th Annual Meeting of Asian Development Bank Board of Governors held in Astana.

 During the meeting, the parties discussed issues of interactions and broadening of cooperation.

"Since joining of Kazakhstan to the UNIDO in 1997 there were number of joint projects in the sphere of small and medium-sized businesses, Kazakhstan also participated in several regional UNIDO projects covering areas such as industrial statistics, industrial integration and easing the negative impact of industry on the environment," Mr. Dossaev stated.

Yerbolat Dossayev noted that, according to recognized independent reports, UNIDO is a global leader in the provision of technical assistance to increase trade capacity in developing countries by industrialized unification of standards, testing and quality assessment, which itself is the organization's activities.

Minister also assured that Kazakhstan highly appreciates the work of UNIDO and its cooperation with this organization. He noted that currently industry occupies almost a third part in the economy of Kazakhstan. The mining sector accounts for more than 2.9% of employment and 18% of gross value added in the economy. Investments in fixed assets in the mining industry are more than 30% of the total volume and 12% in mining industry today. Kazakhstan is the world's leading exporter of mining industry products (primarily due to oil) in terms of average per capita exports ahead of all CIS countries.

"Kazakhstan's goal is to ensure a balanced and sustainable economic growth through diversification of the economy and its competitiveness. Kazakhstan plans to enter the top thirty most developed countries by 2050. In this context, it is important for Kazakhstan to attract the expertise of UNIDO, to use its methodologies, technical knowledge," Mr. Dossayev emphasized.
Li Yong, on his part, noted that UNIDO highly values cooperation with Kazakhstan, and intending to deepen and broaden this interaction. The Director General also drew attention to the work to diversify the economy carried out in the country, having note