Kassym-Jomart Tokayev took part in the second meeting of the heads of Central Asian states and the President of the European Council

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev attended the second meeting of leaders in the "Central Asia - European Union" format, which was held in Cholpon-Ata.

At the beginning of his speech, the head of state expressed his satisfaction with the fact that despite unprecedented geopolitical aggravation, Central Asian countries have strengthened intra-regional dialogue. In his opinion, the European Union has a considerable merit in this.

The prospects for cooperation between Central Asia and the EU, as Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said, are indeed extensive.

- According to last year's results, the inflow of European investments in Kazakhstan increased by 23%, amounting to $12.5 billion. Of the $350 billion in foreign direct investment attracted to Kazakhstan over the 30 years of its independence, almost half of it was of European origin. The European Union is Kazakhstan's largest trade partner accounting for more than 40% of our foreign trade. Last year, the volume of Kazakhstan's mutual trade with the EU countries amounted to $40 billion. I believe that we have every opportunity to increase this figure to $50 billion by 2025," the President stated.

As he further noted, more than three thousand companies with European capital are operating in Kazakhstan, including such transnational corporations as Shell, Eni, Total, Air Liquide, Alstom, Siemens, and others.

- I am pleased to note that our comprehensive partnership is supported by new agreements in promising and strategically important sectors such as the extraction of rare-earth metals and the production of green hydrogen. One of the breakthrough projects was the start of construction by the German-Swedish company Svevind of a plant to install wind and solar power plants and produce three million tons of green hydrogen in Kazakhstan. This amounts to about 20% of the EU's needs in this product. Last November we signed a Strategic Partnership Memorandum with the President of European Commission Ursula von der Leyen on sustainable raw materials, batteries and renewable hydrogen value chains, - said Head of State.

The speech went on to present priority areas of cooperation, which will be of strategic importance not only for Kazakhstan, but also for all countries in the region. First of all Kassym-Jomart Tokayev dwelled on the increase of trade turnover. The priority, in his opinion, is to increase exports by expanding the trade nomenclature.

- Kazakhstan is ready to increase its export to the EU in 175 non-resource commodity items worth $2.3 billion in such areas as mechanical engineering, iron and steel production, food industry. There are also great prospects for cooperation in agriculture," the leader of Kazakhstan believes.

The second priority in his speech was named the development of transport and logistics infrastructure. According to the President, the Trans-Caspian international transport route has acquired strategic importance at this stage.

- I believe it can significantly increase the level of interaction between our regions. During a recent state visit to China, my Chinese partners and I launched the construction of a logistics terminal in Xi'an. We expect this port to become an important hub for sending direct container trains through Central Asia to Europe. We have also agreed to link the Trans-Caspian route with China's 'Belt and Road' initiative," said the Head of State.

Special attention in his speech was paid to the diversification of energy transportation routes.

- Currently, 80% of Kazakhstan's oil exports to Europe are carried out through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. On the basis of common interests, we are counting on further support from the EU to ensure long-term and stable supplies through this strategically important oil pipeline," said the President.

Along with this, in his speech, the perspectives of exporting oil via other routes were outlined.

- For example, since the beginning of this year, we have started pumping Kazakh oil via the Aktau-Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan route with a volume of 1.5 million tons per year. In the medium term, we plan to expand oil exports via the Aktau-Batumi route, as well as to increase the volume of oil pumped via the Trans-Caspian route. At the same time, Kazakhstan started supplying oil to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline. Since the beginning of this year, supplies in the amount of 90 thousand tons have already been realized. There is a potential to bring this indicator up to 1.2 million tons per year with the possibility of increasing in the future, - noted Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

In addition, such areas as climate and "green transition" were among the priorities of cooperation.

- We are introducing the principles of the circular economy. The share of renewable energy sources in our country's energy mix has reached 4.5%. By 2030, this figure should reach 15%. We believe that in this regard, it is advisable to increase joint efforts in the implementation of the Global Gateway strategy and the initiatives of Team Europe on climate change, water resources, the development of renewable energy sources in Central Asia, - says Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

Speaking about the development of digitalization, the President pointed out the great opportunities for cooperation: "In March of this year it was announced that Microsoft will open a multi-regional hub in Kazakhstan, which will be a center for attracting advanced technologies. We have set a goal to train at least 100 thousand highly qualified IT specialists by 2025. That is why I invite European universities to open branches in Kazakhstan, including on the basis of the Astana Hub technology park, which has become an important regional IT platform. In general, we plan to scale our developments in the field of digitalization and share our experience at the regional level," the head of state suggested.

At the end of his speech the leader of Kazakhstan highly appreciated the support of the European Union in promotion of the foreign policy initiatives of our country and implementation of large-scale democratic reforms.

President of the European Council Charles Michel, President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmon, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan Nurmukhammet Amannepesov also addressed the summit.

At the end of the meeting, the participants adopted a Joint Press Communiqué.