Alikhan Smailov, Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Lin Wu, Secretary of the Party Committee of Shandong Province of China, discussed the activation of cooperation in trade and economic and transport and logistics spheres.

Head of the Government noted that today more than 6% of the total volume of trade between Kazakhstan and China falls on Shandong. However, Kazakhstan is interested in further promotion of its goods in the Chinese market and the search for new areas of cooperation. Given this, the development of transportation potential and deepening of cooperation within the framework of the "One Belt, One Road" initiative is of particular relevance.

"This will be facilitated by the launch of the first return train on the route "China - Europe" for the delivery of Kazakh barley to the PRC, which took place the day before in Almaty. We are ready to increase the supply of Kazakhstani products along this route and expand the range of supplied goods and services," Alikhan Smailov said.

Prime Minister also emphasized the importance of holding in Astana a Kazakh-Chinese forum on cooperation with Shandong Province.

"Undoubtedly, this event will expand productive trade and investment interaction between our business circles," he said.

In turn, Lin Wu emphasized that productive cooperation has already been established between Shandong Province and the regions of Kazakhstan. At the same time, there is great potential to expand cooperation in the areas of deep processing of agricultural products, trade and construction of logistics infrastructure.

"This time representatives of more than 100 enterprises of Shandong Province in the above sectors came with us. We expect to sign a number of joint trade and economic projects. We are confident that through common efforts, our future cooperation will be more extensive. We are willing to deepen the partnership between our enterprises and realize more joint projects," Lin Wu said.

For reference: Shandong Province is located on China's east coast and is an important agricultural production area. It grows wheat, cotton, peanuts, tobacco, bast crops, etc. Shandong is one of the country's major horticultural and field-growing areas, leading aquaponics and silk cocoon breeding centers.

In December 2022, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy and Shandong Port Group, China's largest port operator, signed a Memorandum of Cooperation under which they agreed to develop multimodal container services and related digital products.

#Alikhan Smailov #The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan #International Cooperation