Saparbek Tuyakbayev, chairman of national investment company Kazakh Invest, announced that the company is negotiating with Turkey's largest conglomerates to sign deals worth billions of dollars, stressing that the economic relations between Turkey and Kazakhstan.
Tuyakbayev said Kazakhstan has experienced major changes over the last 10 years and that the situation in the country has been changing rapidly, adding that Kazakhstan is a part of the Eurasian Economic Association (EAEU) with access to Russia, Iran, Arab and Central Asian countries.
Tuyakbayev said Kazakhstan has made significant investments in the logistics infrastructure of China's New Silk Road Project. "Kazakhstan has become a transit country between two major markets in the world, China and the EU. If you produce in Kazakhstan, it's easy to enter big markets," he added. The chairman said investors from Turkey, Italy, Germany and other countries have turned to Kazakhstan to open up the EAEU market, highlighting that Kazakhstan has become the focus of investors with its cheap resources.
"We've improved the investment environment of the country and have been working with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] for more than five years," Tukaybayev continued. "We examined factors affecting investment, such as immigration, customs, tax laws, the use of foreign labor forces and visas. Last year, we adopted the OECD Declaration on International Investments and Multinational Corporations."
Tuyakbayev stated that their laws and investment environment are in compliance with the demands of the OECD and that the Astana International Financial Center is operational, informing that an independent legal system based on the International Court of Arbitration and British Law will work to provide court guarantees for foreign investors.
Tuyakbayev underscored that Kazakh Invest was established and modeled after the Republic of Turkey Prime Ministry Investment Support and Promotion Agency (ISPAT) within the framework of the five-year national investment strategy adopted last year. Noting that they explored the know-hows of Korea, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Turkey, and found Turkey's the most suitable in this regard due to the good results achieved in practice. The company will assume the role of negotiator between Kazakhstan's government and foreign investors. Recalling that investors would do everything - including project research - in the past, Tuyakbayev said Kazakh Invest is now preparing projects, showing which sectors can be invested in and making net accounts, adding that they will also look into the investor's choice projects or ways to find financing for their own projects and provide them with free services from agreements with the government for the signing investment contracts, preparation of infrastructure and provision of tax incentives to the completion of factory construction. In short, investors coming to Kazakhstan will not have to go through the ministries one by one.
Tuyakbayev said Kazakhstan has attracted $300 billion in invests over the last 25 years. "$2 billion was invested from Turkey. This is a very small amount, but in the last half year, we signed agreements with Turkey amounting to more than $1 billion in chemistry, agricultural chemistry, food and other areas," he continued. "We are currently in talks with Turkey's largest holdings. We will sign deals amounting to a few billion dollars this year. Our situation with Turkey is changing dramatically."
Tuyakbayev also stressed that petrochemistry, natural gas, agriculture, the food industry and infrastructure are priority sectors for investment in the country.
