Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said today that he expects the trade volume with Russia to exceed $30 billion in the near future, reports Anadolu.

Speaking at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who arrived on Wednesday for a state visit to Kazakhstan’s capital Astana, Tokayev said this fact emphasizes the deepening of the economic partnership between the two countries.

“The trade volume between Kazakhstan and Russia is increasing reaches record levels, about 30 billion dollars,” he said. Tokayev highly praised economic interaction with Russia, saying that the country continues to play a major role in the development of Kazakhstan, noting that Moscow remains the main source of foreign direct investment in the country.

“Russia is currently the leader in direct investment in our economy of $29 billion,” Tokayev said, adding that Astana intends to continue cooperation in that direction.

The two countries are implementing 177 joint projects with a combined volume investments of about 53 billion dollars, he emphasized, adding that Russia’s role in the development of Kazakhstan’s economic potential is “difficult to overestimate”.

For his part, Putin described the cooperation between Moscow and Astana within international organizations as “an example of constructive cooperation in international affairs”.

The Russian president said that the efforts of Russia’s “malicious” to hinder the country’s economic growth have failed. “Despite the efforts of some of our adversaries to fight this, they themselves don’t have everything right,” Putin said, adding that Russia continues to rank fourth globally in purchasing power parity after China, the US and India.

Tokayev said Russia holds the first position in Europe by this measure.

Kazakhstan’s Energy Minister Erlan Akkenzhenov told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting that the authorities of Kazakhstan and Russia are discussing the possibility of launching a gas pipeline through the country to China.

“We have started discussing the so-called ‘Power of Siberia 2’, although its working name is probably different, a gas pipeline with a capacity of up to 35 billion cubic meters of gas passing through the territory of Kazakhstan to the territory of China,” he said.

Akkenzhenov added that they expressed their desire “for the transit to pass through” the territory of Kazakhstan. “For this purpose, we are ready to offer all conditions and all guarantees, plus additional consumption in the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan”, he said.

According to him, this pipeline will be important for Kazakhstan because it will provide opportunities “to supply the northern and eastern territories with blue fuel”.

Source: prizrenpost