Bakhyt Sultanov : About regional trade

https://www.facebook.com/bakhyt.sultanov 

A large and important event was held in Turkmenistan yesterday. The heads of the Central Asian states "checked the hours" of mutual cooperation.

Everyone agrees that the full disclosure of the potential of our countries is possible only if we combine efforts in ensuring security, cultural rapprochement and, most importantly, in joining economic interests. In each of these areas, the key tool is precisely the increase in trade, both intraregional and external, but already within the framework of industrial and economic cooperation.

Our president told his colleagues about this.

Kassym-Jomart Kemelevich voiced the idea of uniting all neighbors to create a single commodity distribution network integrated into the transport corridors of Central Asia.

Recently, I traveled around the region, met with colleagues from the governments of Central Asian countries, and with farmers. The idea of creating such a system consisting of wholesale distribution and agrologistic centers was discussed at all levels. Such points of attraction are needed. Manufacturers see them as a convenient infrastructure for storing and processing their products, while traders see them as points for accumulating volumes and enlarging batches. But the main thing (and this is already the interests of state bodies) is a unified system for the flow of goods that will ensure the saturation of their own markets with agricultural products during the off-season.

Joint planning of regional trade will contribute to strengthening not only economic cooperation and trade turnover in the region. When countries are interested in each other, other joint initiatives are also developed. For example, the ideas of transport corridors are being promoted.

The adopted bilateral roadmaps for the development of industrial cooperation are being implemented in full swing (a good example is the cooperation of the automotive industry of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in close cooperation with Russian colleagues). And this is a completely different level of economic interaction.

Our other proposal is also intended to help deepen the level of cooperation - the joint creation and development of cross-border trade centers (following the example of the already existing ICPS "Khorgos" and the ICTES "Central Asia" being created together with Uzbek colleagues), on the territory of which it is necessary to generate joint products with a single brand "Made in Central Asia" and promote them to the markets of third countries. There are a lot of profitable directions and niches.

By the way, the expositions of our manufacturers of folk art products (clothing, household and dining utensils, etc.) aroused great interest at the exhibition. For example, our kurak korpe are sold in London at a price from 500 to 3000 pounds. Such brands can not only create high-quality jobs, but also promote our common culture far beyond the region.

Speaking about high-tech materials, I would like to note that at the exhibition we offered our colleagues to use our achievements in remote sensing of the earth, as well as in pharmaceuticals, including the creation and expansion of a line of vaccines. In today's realities of global pandemics and climate change, this will allow our countries to develop joint and timely solutions for the medical and food security of the region, based on the rational use of pharmaceutical and water and energy resources.

As our president said, a systematic dialogue and coordinated actions are not only an effective, but "an alternative mechanism for solving common problems".

That is why such synchronization of common work for the sake of everyone's interests was reflected in the Joint Statement following the results of the Consultative Meeting of the Heads of Central Asian States.

I think that after such an impulse, work in this direction will be intensified in all countries.