Minister of trade and integration of Kazakhstan held trade talks in Switzerland

During the visit of the Minister of trade and integration of Kazakhstan Bakhyt Sultanov to the Swiss Confederation, a number of meetings with officials were held.

At the meeting with Erwin Bollinger (bilateral trade cooperation) and Markus Schlagenhov (international trade cooperation), representatives of the Swiss Federal Council for trade agreements, the parties discussed the current state of bilateral and international trade and the situation in the world trade organization.

Kazakhstan, as the host country of the 12th Ministerial conference next year (it was supposed to be held in June this year, but was postponed due to the pandemic), is closely monitoring the process of electing a new WTO Director General, Bakhyt Sultanov said. "The new head of the Organization will have to carry out the necessary WTO reforms in the context of changes in world trade, bring the system of settlement of trade disputes out of the crisis and restore the authority of the world trade organization," the Minister of trade and integration of Kazakhstan said.

Bilateral cooperation between Kazakhstan and Switzerland was also discussed during the meeting.

Thus, the parties also agreed to complete the approval of two projects: Agreement on mutual recognition of assay marks for precious metal products and draft Protocol on the rules of internal regulation of trade in services.

"We aim to sign these documents next year as part of the upcoming high - level visits," Bakhyt Sultanov said.

The parties also discussed the implementation of the REX system in Kazakhstan, aimed at converting exporters ' certificates of origin to electronic format. And we agreed to hold a training seminar for Kazakhstani experts.

According to the Minister of trade and integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan, many points of the Protocol of the 10th meeting of the intergovernmental Commission (held in October 2019) "were not fulfilled due to the pandemic and lockdowns." This also caused a decrease in mutual trade turnover, which decreased by 20% in 8 months. "The main reason for this was the fall in oil prices (we export crude oil to Switzerland): in terms of tonnage, exports rose, but in terms of price, they fell. But the increase in imports from Switzerland was due to an increase in the supply of anti - cancer drugs and medical devices to Kazakhstan," Sultanov explained.

As part of the work to expand Kazakhstan's exports, the Minister of trade and integration of Kazakhstan presented the co-Chairman of the Swiss IPC, Mr. Edwin Bollinger, an updated list of 40 goods (with a total value of 274.9 million us dollars) that Kazakhstan can additionally supply to the Swiss market. The list includes products from the petrochemical, food industry, mechanical engineering, metallurgy, and construction industries.

Also met with the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bucher Industries, Chairman of the foreign economic Commission and a Board Member of the Association of Swiss businesses Economiesuisse Philip Mosimann and Head of foreign Economics and a Board member of Economiesuisse Jan Atteslander.

The Association of Swiss companies Economiesuisse represents about 100,000 companies, includes 100 industry associations, 20 cantonal chambers of Commerce, informs the private sector about changes in the tax sphere, energy and the environment, issues related to health and infrastructure.

The parties discussed the prospects for industrial cooperation and joint implementation of projects to create local clusters for the production of export-oriented products (to the markets of China, Central ASIA and the EAEU).

In particular, the Minister of trade and integration of Kazakhstan informed representatives of Swiss business about a major project to create a National commodity distribution system and a Eurasian food hub in Kazakhstan. He invited Swiss businessmen to take an active part in the implementation of projects in Kazakhstan on deep processing of agricultural products. Bakhyt Sultanov presented to the Swiss side an analysis to identify 16 sectors (goods and services) with the potential to increase exports by 13.5 billion us dollars.

The Swiss side expressed its interest in deepening cooperation with Kazakhstan.

In particular, an agreement was reached to create a Working group to jointly identify potential projects for implementation. The interests of the Kazakh side will be represented by the QazTrade trade policy development Center, the Swiss side – Switzerland Global Enterprise and the United chamber of Commerce Switzerland-CIS.

Philip Mosimann also noted that Kazakhstan has created favorable conditions for foreign investors. They also supported proposals for localization and creation of joint cluster productions. "We propose to consider such projects on a win-win basis," Mr. Mosimann said.