Azernews.Az

By Kamila Aliyeva

A meeting of Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov and Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who came to Astana for an official visit, was held on August 3, Central Asian media outlets reported.

During the talks, the ministers reviewed progress of implementation of the earlier reached agreements between Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the SCO Summit in June 2017 in Astana and in at Qindao Summit in early June.

Abdrakhmanov said that the Kazakh leader gave several concrete tasks to bolster bilateral cooperation in energy, logistics, information technologies, space, pharmaceuticals, tourism and film making. These are the main areas to be addressed in the upcoming official top-level events in 2019, he added.

It was noted that the bilateral trade in 2017 reached $1 billion. The countries agreed to further boost bilateral trade.

The productive work of the Kazakh-Indian intergovernmental commission for trade, economic, scientific, technical, industrial and cultural cooperation was praised. Indian business circles expressed interest in possible management of big airports of Kazakhstan, cooperation at Astana International Finance Center, International Center of Green Technologies and Investment Projects, AstanaHub IT Startup Park.

The ministers identified areas of multilateral cooperation. The Kazakh Foreign Minister pointed out that India provided assistance to deployment of Kazakhstan’s peacekeeping troops in Lebanon as part of the Indian battalion of UN Interim Force in Lebanon this year.

Start of the talks on signing a free trade zone agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and India was described as another multilateral cooperation project.

Sushma Swaraj, speaking to journalists following the meeting, noted that the meeting covered “the full range of bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest.”

She also stressed that there is immense potential to be tapped in sectors like agricultural products, food processing, pharmaceuticals, energy and chemicals.

Kazakhstan is India’s largest trade and investment partner in Central Asia. Bilateral trade between the two countries stood at $642.42 million in 2016-2017. Cumulative investments from India into Kazakhstan and from Kazakhstan to India from 2005 to 2016 amounted to $244 million and $83.09 million respectively, according to the data of the Indian External Affairs Ministry.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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