CICA Takes Stock of 2021 and Approves Plans for Further Actions  

Nur-Sultan, 8 December 2021 – On December 6 and 8, 2021, under the chairmanship of Kazakhstan meetings of the Special Working Group (SWG) and the Senior Officials Committee (SOC) of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) were held via videoconference.

Chairman of the SOC – First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan Shakhrat Nuryshev, summing up the results of the activities of the CICA in 2021, noted the growing activity of the Conference and high efficiency in the interaction of the Member States, as evidenced by successful convening of the 6^th CICA Ministerial Meeting in Nur-Sultan, establishment of the Council of Eminent Persons, transformation of the Think Tank Forum into a permanent platform, adoption of the updated Catalogue of Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) with such new priority areas as epidemiological security, public health and pharmaceuticals, security and use of information and communication technologies.

Member States were briefed about the future plans of the Chairmanship for further development of the CICA process, including promotion of the transformation of the Conference into an international organization, hosting of the 6th Summit in October 2022, formation of the Council of Eminent Persons, establishment of the CICA Fund, adoption of the CICA Action Plan for the Implementation of the UN Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

Executive Director of the CICA Secretariat Kairat Sarybay elaborated on the activities of the Secretariat and the implementation of the CICA CBMs in five dimensions, within which the Member States have already held 35 events in 2021 and 3 are scheduled before the end of 2021, and informed on the planned activities in 2022.

The SOC approved the concepts in the priority areas "Development of Small and Medium Enterprises" and "Finance", appointed coordinators in the priority areas "Epidemiological Security, Public Health and Pharmaceuticals" (Kazakhstan), "Combating Terrorism" (India) and "Security and Use of Information and Communication Technologies" (Russia), took a decision to establish relations with Eurasian Economic Union and ASEAN, approved the budget of the Secretariat for 2022 and its staffing matrix, as well as adopted a recommendation on CICA Chairmanship of Kazakhstan in 2022-2024.