Stratejik öneme sahip sektörlere ve projelere odaklanacağız
Commercial and economic cooperation between the two countries is not only limited to trade, but also mutual investments and contracting services have reached to an important dimension.
According to the data announced by the official institutions of Kazakhstan, we are in third place after Russia and China in terms of the number of companies established by foreign citizens.
It is possible to say that we are successful in contracting services more than we are in foreign trade. Kazakhstan is the fifth largest market in the construction industry in terms of total volume of projects undertaken in Turkey.
Since its establishment, DEİK and Business Councils have played a historical role in improving our commercial and economic relations with both Kazakhstan and other USSR countries. Works of Turkey-Kazakhstan Business Council also need to be evaluated in this context. Our council which organizes business meetings attended by representatives of private sector and public institutions from both countries, delegation visits and other events, helped and still helping to two countries’ private sector representatives to know each other and establish business contacts, Turkey to learn about the opportunities in the private sector in Kazakhstan and Turkey to take the right steps to take advantage of this opportunity.
Our business council, which aims to diversify the services offered to the private sector under changing conditions, attaches great importance to efforts to inform our business people about the business and investment opportunities available in Kazakhstan. In this framework, we plan to carry out more effective studies that introduce the supply sectors in Kazakhstan that has potential and job opportunities in these sectors. In the upcoming period, we have focused on strategically important sectors and projects, and we have determined to increase the share of Turkish companies in these sectors and to produce effective solutions for our companies that see Kazakhstan as a potential business area. the foreign trade between Turkey and Kazakhstan from reaching to the desired level. The main reasons may be high transportation and logistics costs, insufficient works for firms to enter the market, insistence on years of inefficient foreign trade methods that do not meet today's conditions.
As Turkey, besides raw materials and semifinished products, we can get well-finished industrial products that we need from Kazakhstan. On the other hand, our evaluations show that the need of machinery, equipment and other capital goods of developing industry of Kazakhstan, service sector and agriculture sector can be provided from Turkey. In other words, it is possible to identify and implement trading models in which both parties will benefit from.
In Kazakhstan, which is one of the most successful countries in terms of foreign capital inflows among the USSR countries, oil, natural gas and various mineral reserves are a major attraction for foreign investors. In recent years, favorable conditions have been created in the manufacturing industry and agriculture sector for foreign investors. Besides its rich natural resources, its favorable geographical location and being the key country of transportation projects connecting China to Europe, the effective measures taken for the
We can say that there are important opportunities in the field of agriculture and processing of agricultural products in the country. Especially in South Kazakhstan, there are serious investment opportunities in greenhouse. In addition, investments can be made in the field of establishment and operation of cattle and small cattle farms, industrial meat production and processing. In these sectors, there are important improvement of the investment environment and the support provided for project financing increase the attraction of the country. In addition, direct access to the 200 million population Eurasian Economic Union market, which Kazakhstan is among the founders of, is among the main factors that increase Kazakhstan's attraction for foreign investors. When we consider all these, we can easily say that Kazakhstan is among the countries with the most favorable investment climate in the Eurasian geography.
In the period between 2005 and 2018, almost 70 percent of the total foreign capital coming to Central Asia came to Kazakhstan. Between 1992 and 2018, the total cumulative amount of direct foreign capital attracted by Kazakhstan is over 300 billion dollars. Kazakhstan is one of the countries where Turkish investors are most active in the Eurasian geography. Our companies continue their activities in sectors such as food industry, hotel management, banking and finance, retail trade, manufacturing industry, many fields of service sector (consultancy, legal services, tourism, and logistics), pharmaceutical production, and mining. In addition to relatively small and medium-sized investments, large-scale investment projects are also being carried out by our corporate companies.
Our investors take an important place in the economy of Kazakhstan, add vitality to the market and provide serious employment. In addition, issues such as applying new business and management models, bringing inactive local resources to the economy, and social responsibility projects should be taken into account. From this point of view, we can say that the activities of Turkish entrepreneurs in Kazakhstan create a much more important value than the figures say. Increasing this contribution in the upcoming period and Turkish companies to operate as strategic investors in sectors that are of priority for Kazakhstan are among our primary targets. In this context, we can state that the importance of the projects carried out with the public private sector partnership (PPP) model will increase and that we have companies that are successful in this field in Kazakhstan and many projects have been implemented. On the other hand, the number of Kazakh companies, whose financial infrastructure is getting stronger and becoming important in their own sectors, is increasing. We wish them to evaluate the investment oppotunities in Turkey and for Kazakhowned enterprise in our country to increase.
As known, 11th period meeting of TurkeyKazakhstan Intergovernmental Joint Economic Commission (JEC) was held in Ankara and İstanbul in November 10, 2019 and November 8, 2019. With the help of JEC Meeting which was undertaken by the co-chairs; Vice President Fuat Oktay and the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin, TurkeyKazakhstan Business Forum was held in Istanbul on November 10, 2019. 18 collaboration agreements were signed between Turkish and Kazakh companies and institutions during the event which was attended by ministers, official institution officials and private sector representatives, as well as JEC cochairs. The topics of developing mutual commercial and economic cooperation were discussed.
Particularly, the business forum where subjects like introduction of Astana International Finance Center, which operates on the basis of the UK legal system and offers important advantages to foreign investors, to Turkish companies, increasing the product diversity in reciprocal trade, more effective means of resolving commercial disputes and paving the way for international arbitration was discussed, was participated by 1000 company and institution representatives. faaliyet gösteren ve yabancı yatırımcılara önemli avantajlar sunan Astana Uluslararası Finans Merkezi’nin Türk firmalarına tanıtılması konularının öne çıktığı iş forumuna her iki taraftan yaklaşık 1000 şirket ve kurum temsilcisi iştirak etti.