01/03/2024
The Head of state gave an interview to the Egemen Qazaqstan newspaper.
«Today, relations between Kazakhstan and China are actively developing in the spirit of friendship, good neighborliness, and eternal strategic partnership.
Together with President Xi Jinping, we launched a new «Golden thirty years» of cooperation between Kazakhstan and China. Clear evidence of this are the two visits I made to China last year. During substantive negotiations with the Chinese leader in Xi’an and Beijing, we reached important agreements and outlined specific ways for their implementation. Such personal contacts fully reflect the high level of ties between Astana and Beijing. Kazakh-Chinese relations can confidently be called exemplary. Mutual trade turnover is demonstrating unprecedented growth – according to the results of 10 months of 2023, it reached $24.3 billion, setting a new record. We are actively working to expand the range of exports of our products and increase the volume of supplies to China. In addition, China has traditionally been one of the largest investors in the economy of Kazakhstan. Our country has already accumulated $24 billion of Chinese investment. The common border with China, the advantageous geographical position of Kazakhstan between East and West – all this opens up broad prospects for our country for the transit of Chinese goods in various directions. During my participation in the Third High-Level Forum «One Belt, One Road» in Beijing, such important agreements as the Agreement on the joint development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route and the Memorandum on the joint construction of the Ayagoz- Tacheng railway were signed. I am confident that they will give additional impetus to the development of the transport and logistics sector of our country. Kazakhstan firmly supports the Chinese mega-project «One Belt, One Road,» as evidenced once again by my speech at the forum in Beijing last October.
The entry into force of a visa-free regime between Kazakhstan and China is extremely important – Kazakhstanis now have the right to freely visit this country. I hope many of our fellow citizens will take advantage of this opportunity. With regard to China, we should not have fears brought in from outside or based on ideas of days gone by. Now China is a highly developed state, including in the field of high technology. The whole world recognizes this. Therefore, it is extremely important for Kazakhstan to cooperate with our eastern neighbor and effectively use all the advantages of such friendly relations and mutual trust»
The full text of the interview can be found here: https://kazpravda.kz/n/prezident-respubliki-kazahstan-kasym-zhomart-tokaev-kak-progressivnaya-natsiya-my-dolzhny-smotret-tolko-vpered/
