ISLAMABAD  -   Kazakh Ambassador to Pakistan Barlybay Sadykov said that his country has drafted a roadmap, aimed at intensifying the Pak-Kazakh bilateral economic cooperation. 

He said this in an exclusive interview with the Dispatch News Desk (DND) news agency here.

The envoy said that this document is largely about a set of measures, which are to push forward our trade and investment cooperation.

Responding to a question relating to major areas of cooperation between Pakistan and Kazakhstan, he said that from the very beginning of diplomatic relationship between Kazakhstan and Pakistan, which dates back to early 1990s, both the countries have never questioned the need for developing and enhancing their bilateral ties, no matter of what cooperation area we are talking about. It means that Kazakhstan and Pakistan have no political hindrances whatsoever to increase the volume of their cooperation bonds.

He further said that another conspicuous matter about Pakistan is that this country was among the first in the world to recognize Kazakhstan as a sovereign state in 1991 after the demise of the Soviet Union, which my country had been for decades an integral part of.

Apart of impeccable political relationship, which is strongly based upon mutual and adequate understanding of modern geopolitical realities and its ongoing trends, Kazakhstan and Pakistan have a lot in common in terms of their historical background, historical and religious linkages, which go back centuries, and nowadays appear to be a unique heritage we own and should fully exercise in a most efficient manner.

Right now the entire volume of political contacts the countries include numerous mutual visits of their leadership and cooperation within various international organisations, ranging from the UN to the ones of regional character, namely the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA).

The ambassador explained that the last occasion of a high ranking political visit of the Pakistani leadership to Kazakhstan was the one of President Mamnoon Hussain with the aim of participating at the 1st OIC Summit and Technologies, held in Astana in September 2017.

Here is worthwhile to point out that Pakistan is a host country of the OIC Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation of the OIC, while Kazakhstan is a host country of another OIC institution, which is termed as the Islamic Organization for Food Security. This fact is not only about Kazakhstan-Pakistan cooperation within the OIC but rather about our countries’ contribution to development of areas, which are of paramount importance for the entire Muslim world, namely availability of food supplies and nurturing a culture of knowledge.

He also said that another area of bilateral collaboration is, of course, the military one, keeping in mind that the Pakistani armed forces strength, experience and their great degree of involvement of the UN-led Peacekeeping Mission across the world are widely known and recognizable.

This is to say that Kazakhstan is interested very much in knowing more about that experience, what makes my country to intensify military ties with Pakistan, which currently turned into the most effective and rapidly developing fields of our bilateral cooperation.

These ties largely cover the specific areas, such as military education, special forces training and military enginery. In November last, the delegation of the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Defence and Aerospace Industry visited Karachi for attending the 10th IDEAS-2018, more known as the International Defence Exhibition and Seminar. This is the event, which Kazakhstan militaries always try to attend, while their Pakistan counterparts regularly participate at the KADEX military enginery and ammunition exhibition, held in Kazakhstan.

Sadykov said that there are also 38 representatives of the Armed Forces of Kazakhstan who have been trained since 2005 in military schools in Pakistan. This year four Kazakhstan officers underwent training courses for the UN military observers at the International Centre for Peace and Stability in Islamabad.

At the same time we in Kazakhstan are keen to be aware of Pakistan’s vast expertise in combating terrorism, what is also another area of cooperation. The first joint counter-terrorist exercises “Dostarym-2017”, which were held in November 2017 at the National Anti-Terrorist Centre of the Pakistan in Pabbi overtly demonstrated to the demand from both sides for trainings of this sort. The second counter-terrorism exercises under the same title are expected to be held in Kazakhstan in 2019.

Sadykov remarked that both Kazakhstan and Pakistan authorities have to examine constantly and in a systematic way our cooperation potential in order to identify and respond in a timely manner to opportunities for improving that cooperation as much as it possible.

Responding on a question related to trade volume between these two countries, he said that lack of direct geographical communications seriously hamper our bilateral economic and trade cooperation. But even though the current dynamics of trade and economic interaction between our countries could be much better.

The dates provided by Kazakhstan’s statistical authorities make it clear that a trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Pakistan in 2017 amounted to US$ 28,42 million, which was 12% more than for the similar period of 2016 (US$ 25,6 million).

Trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Pakistan in January-August of 2018 amounted to US$ 21.7 million.

The Pakistani export to Kazakhstan largely consists of precious stones and jewellery, textile, chemical and pharmaceutical products, agricultural and food goods, vegetables, shoes, leather items, sport and medical equipment, construction materials and etc.

Pakistan imports from Kazakhstan construction and materials, food, machinery and equipment, fertilizers, coal, iron and nonferrous metals, seed oil and etc.

With taking into account Pakistan’s huge market, Kazakhstan may export to Pakistan energy resources, electricity, mining and agricultural products, in particular wheat and meat.

Similarly, Kazakhstan is importing in a large volume from Pakistan products of textile, cotton, leather industry, along with sanitary engineering equipment, medicaments and surgical instruments, he said.

For improving trade relationship our countries need first to rise an awareness of their business circles of each other. This imperative strongly motivated the Embassy of Kazakhstan to hold in late November of 2018 in Islamabad a special seminar on ways of doing business with Kazakhstan.

The entire foreign service of Kazakhstan is currently shifting towards strengthening primarily economic diplomacy in developing our country’s relationship with the rest of the world. This is to say that the Embassy is also to be strongly in line with this policy to be held here in Pakistan.

Kazakhstan and Pakistan have some opportunities to boost their trade and investment ties, which are to be fully exercised in a befitting way.

The embassy is planning now to arrange a number of seminars, round-tables and road-shows to be held within a tour through Pakistan’s economic and industrial hubs in Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and some other areas, with the aim of increasing awareness of local business circles about Kazakhstan, its trade and investment opportunities, as well as tourist potential of our country. In this regard I would like to underscore that the World Bank’s «Doing Business» comprehensive report for 2018 has ranked Kazakhstan 28th in terms of the ease of doing business, compared with its position at the 36th place in 2017.

The Astana International Financial Center (AIFC), which was officially launched in the mid-2018 as the English-law-based institution, is expected to turn very soon into a regional financial hub, alike the Shanghai stock market and the New-York stock market «Nasdaq». Pakistani business community is also highly welcomed to join cooperation with the AIFC.

To a question about improving the people-to-people contacts, he said that contacts between countries in the contemporary globalising world are getting of extreme importance for keeping interstate relationship safer and more predictable. This is even to say that degree of this sort contacts is a certain a marker of what this relationship is about in terms of its depth and cooperative nature. This approach is totally applicable for accessing Kazakhstan-Pak relations as well. For this reason, it is quite obvious that increasing of people-to-people contacts is the issue of great significance for me as the Ambassador of Kazakhstan and the Embassy I run.

Coming up to the issue of how to facilitate ties between people of our countries first we need to do is to raise their awareness of each other, which is really a challenging task for both sides, he said.

This in turn requires joint and systematic efforts from our national mass media and expert community on a purely bilateral basis and with no excessive reliance upon information provided by any other third party. In other words, perception of Kazakh and Pakistan people of each other should be shaped largely through our own contribution to this process. And we as the Embassy are open for promoting a cooperation of that kind, having, however, in mind that there is a strong need for this cooperation products to be qualitative, competitive and easy to consume by people. Otherwise people in our countries will be destined to consume and stay impressed by any other third-country-made information. And this sort of information dependence is, of course, hard to be termed as something good or positive.