Baku, Azerbaijan, April 23. Kazakhstan and
Azerbaijan continue to strengthen their multifaceted strategic
partnership based on historical trust, good neighborliness, and
mutual support, Director of the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic
Studies Yerkin Tukumov said during the 4th meeting of the
Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan Expert Council, Trend reports.
“We have been conducting an expert dialogue for four years now.
It began with small steps, and today it has become a strong bridge
between our fraternal peoples,” he noted.
According to the analyst, economic cooperation is showing steady
growth: over the past five years, trade turnover between the
countries has grown almost fivefold and reached $500 million.
“This became possible thanks to the active work of government
agencies and diplomatic missions. But the potential is far from
exhausted,” he emphasized.
Tukumov spotlighted economic reforms in Kazakhstan. The country
is betting on diversification and development of non-resource
exports, moving away from the previous model focused exclusively on
attracting foreign investment.
“We stimulate production with high added value: the deeper the
processing, the lower the taxes. This is a direct path to
industrialization,” Tukumov explained.
According to him, Kazakhstan plans to expand the export of
non-resource goods to Azerbaijan. We are talking about 130
commodity items worth more than $340 million.
“These are already concrete steps towards high-quality economic
partnership,” Tukumov noted.
The cooperation also covers the sphere of transport and
logistics. Over the past year, the volume of transportation along
the Trans-Caspian route has grown by 62 percent, amounting to 4.5
million tons.
“Today we supply 1.4 million tons of oil via the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and expect to increase this volume to
2.5 million tons in the coming years,” he said.
The importance of infrastructure modernization was also
emphasized. Kazakhstan has already invested more than $25 billion
in logistics and the railway network. By the end of the year, it is
planned to complete the construction of the second line of the
Dostyk-Moiynty railway, which will significantly increase the
capacity of the Trans-Asian Corridor.
“We believe in a common future and are already investing in it
today. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are not just neighbors but
strategic allies united by a common vision for the development of
the entire region,” Tukumov concluded.
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