The 4th meeting of the Kazakh-British Intergovernmental Commission for trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation and the 2nd meeting of the Kazakh-British Business Council took place in London on December 11.
The delegation of Kazakhstan was headed by the Minister for Investments and Development, Zhenis Kassymbek.
Minister Kassymbek in his welcoming speech expressed his gratitude to the UK Government and Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna for organizing and hosting the Kazakh-British Business Council, which helps bring together the business circles of the two countries.
He noted that in 2017, Kazakh-British cooperation shows positive dynamics: for the first 9 months of the year, the export from Kazakhstan to Great Britain grew by 8.2% and amounted to $720 million.
Great Britain is one of the six largest investors in Kazakhstan. Over the past 12 years, the inflow of direct investment into Kazakhstan has exceeded $12 billion. There are over 500 joint ventures with the participation of British capital in Kazakhstan.
The main goal of the Kazakh-British Business Council meeting was to share the positive developments taking place in Kazakhstan’s national companies with the international community, as well as to familiarise British companies with the investment opportunities in Kazakhstan, Samruk-Kazyna said.
“Through this event and a number of upcoming bilateral meetings that we intend to organise, we aim to strengthen economic relations between the UK and Kazakhstan and attract more British investment in our country,” said Baljeet Kaur Grewal, Managing Director for Strategy and Portfolio Management of Samruk-Kazyna.
Emma Nicholson, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, Trade Representative of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in Kazakhstan, added: “British financial services and legal advisers are working hard to boost the development of the Astana International Financial Centre, and will continue to do so. London remains the financial centre of Europe, and is willing to work with Kazakhstan to implement its ambitious privatisation programme, which has proved successful so far.”
Erlan Idrissov, Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Great Britain, noted: “The very fact that this economic event is taking place reflects the strength of the bilateral relationship between our two countries. I am very proud that at the end of the year in which we celebrated the 25th anniversary of relations between the UK and Kazakhstan, we are enjoying this busy day full of economic dialogue.”
