Bakhyt Sultanov : About a working trip to Bern

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

On behalf of the Head of State, I am conducting trade negotiations.

In recent years, we have been actively increasing the volume of cooperation with Switzerland. This is facilitated by the work of our Intergovernmental Commission and the Kazakh-Swiss Business Council. The summer visit to Kazakhstan of a large delegation of businessmen and potential investors led by the co-chairman of the Business Council from the Swiss side, Peter Spuler, gave a tangible effect to the intensification of bilateral trade and investment relations.

My trip was a continuation of the June meetings of the delegation with the Head of State. By the way, it coincided with the visit of our Foreign Minister to Bern. So we discussed practical issues of investment with an "enhanced" composition.

So, the results.

Stadler CIS AG (its head Peter Spuler is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Stadler Rail AG) has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with Kazakh Invest. Kazakh Invest will help Stadler to find potential Kazakh partners in such sectors as mechanical engineering, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, agro-industrial complex, finance, etc. This is where the Swiss plan to invest.

Kazakh Invest has another Memorandum with KS GENETICS SA. Those who follow the investment field of Kazakhstan are aware that this company (by the way, it operates in Europe, South America and the USA and is engaged, among other things, in animal feed) has received an initiative to build a feed mill and a breeding and hybrid center. It is planned to produce purebred pigs with genetically guaranteed productivity. Moreover, it is proposed to make all production export-oriented (to the market of China and the Asia-Pacific region).

In general, we are moving to the stage of adopting a roadmap for entering into an investment agreement.

An interesting meeting turned out to be with the "Ammann Group". We discussed the transfer of competencies in road construction.

Such personal meetings in B2B are important and productive. We planned to hold a big business meeting in the format of a business forum in November-December of this year.

At this time, the Head of our state Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will pay an official visit to Switzerland.

In preparation for the visit of the President, we discussed a large block of issues with our Swiss counterpart, Erwin Bollinger, Commissioner of the Swiss Federal Council for Trade Agreements. We think that by November we will complete negotiations on the Protocol on the Regulation of Trade in Services and the Agreement on the mutual recognition of the assay mark on products made of precious metals. We hope to sign it during the visit of President Tokayev.

Mr. Bollinger and I also summed up the interim results of the implementation of the decisions of the 10th meeting of the IPC (Mr. Bollinger and I are co-chairs of the Kazakh-Swiss intergovernmental commission). We discussed the possibility of intensifying contacts and holding the next meeting in Nur-Sultan. I hope that the covid problems will not be so strict by then.

In general, there are a lot of topics for discussion. But it is important that we synchronize our processes in expanding mutual trade.

And with such a mutual interest, you will definitely get a good result.