Kazakhstan and the Czech Republic jointly hold a WTO session on the role of water in international trade

The World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters in Geneva hosted a joint panel session of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Czech Republic entitled "Water Across Borders: Trade, Production, and Sustainable Development", organized within the framework of WTO Trade and Environment Week.

Kairat Torebayev, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the WTO and International Economic Organizations and  Manira Alagudzhaeva, Vice-President of KAZWATER, who joined the session online from Astana took part at the event.

Permanent Representative K.Torebayev emphasized that for Central Asia, water has become a matter of economic resilience and competitiveness. Against this background, Kazakhstan views water efficiency not as a separate environmental agenda, but as a cornerstone of a new trade strategy. The country is consistently moving towards a model of high value-added agricultural exports, underpinned by water-saving technologies, the modernization of irrigation, and the digitalization of the water sector.

Turning to the role of the WTO, Permanent Representative K. Torebayev noted that public investments in water conservation and climate-resilient agriculture should be recognized as a contribution to global food security, rather than as a distortion of trade. He further encouraged the international community to take today's climate realities into account when shaping the future of global trade.

Alaguzhayeva presented the technological framework of Kazakhstan’s solutions under this agenda, and also put forward an initiative to establish a regional digital platform for monitoring water resources in Central Asia.

In turn, the Czech side expressed support positively assessing Astana`s efforts in this area.

The joint organization of the session by Kazakhstan and the Czech Republic underlined that the two states, located in different parts of the world, share common approaches to the management of transboundary water resources and their linkages with international trade.