Ulaanbaatar
Mongolian and Kazakh PMs hold official talks
Politics
Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Prime Minister of Mongolia U.Khurelsukh, who is on an official visit to the Republic of Kazakhstan, held official talks with his Kazakh counterpart Askar Mamin on October 10. The two sides at the meeting agreed on the importance of activating cooperation activities to bring bilateral ties and partnership between Mongolia and Kazakhstan to a new level.
People of Mongolia and Kazakhstan have deep connection of culture and history and bilateral relations between Mongolia and Kazakhstan have been moving forward stably since diplomatic relations were established in 1992 and a treaty on friendly relations and cooperation agreement was signed in 1993. “These partnership concepts will be strengthened and broadened with new contents of trade, economy and investment based on the current firm political foundations” said PM U.Khurelsukh.
After raising an initiative to organize intergovernmental commission meeting in 2020, Mongolian Premier U.Khurelsukh highlighted that thanks to direct flights by Kazakhstan’s SCAT Airlines between Ulaanbaatar and Nur-Sultan launched last June, people-to-people exchanges, particularly the mutual travels of businesspeople and tourists have been growing. The Kazakh side in turn pledged their support for a plan of Mongolian airlines to open flights between Ulaanbaatar and Almaty.
Introducing the Future Heritage Fund Corporation established recently by the Government of Mongolia, PM U.Khurelsukh expressed his interest to study experiences from Kazakhstan’s National Welfare Fund ‘Samruk-Kazyna’ and collaborate with the company. Sides also confirmed their readiness to help reach success of implementation of the National Gold Refinery Plant Project, carried out by entities of Mongolia and Kazakhstan.
The Mongolian side also proposed to reinforce agricultural cooperation by increasing exports of meat and animal origin products and establish a joint meat farm in the western region of Mongolia to export meat products to the Middle East countries.
For their part, the Kazakh side expressed their willingness to increase trade and investment in areas of agriculture, education and infrastructure and put forth opportunities to invest in transportation, expansion of logistics network, food and agriculture and small and medium sized light industry fields.
In addition, Prime Minister A.U.Mamin affirmed that it’s about time to bring the relations of Mongolia and Kazakhstan to a new level and his eagerness to develop mainly in the spheres of economy, business and trade. He also offered to appoint working groups and formulate roadmap in this purpose and noted that there is a chance to increase the current volume of trade turnover at USD 35 million up to USD 130 million to be comprised of more than 70 types of products.
The Kazakh PM also informed that the Minister of Trade and Integration had been appointed as a head of the Working Group of Kazakhstan of the intergovernmental commission between two states with an aim to boost trade and economic partnership. Mentioning that Kazakhstan’s interest on the Tsgaannnur free-trade zone, PM A.U.Mamin conveyed about the opportunity to establish transport and trade logistics center in the Altai region based on the free-trade zone.
In conclusion, the Prime Ministers talked about active relations in the international platform and strengthening the cooperation within the framework of the United Nations and other international organizations.
During the Prime Minister’s visit to Kazakhstan, two sides signed several documents of bilateral relations on mutual legal assistance of civil and criminal matters, cooperation in the field of education, as well as veterinary control and supervision and establishing a sister city relationship between Ulaanbaatar and Nur-Sultan.
Same day, Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh met with Chairman of the Security Council of Kazakhstan who served as the first President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. A business forum between Mongolia and Kazakhstan to bring impetus to the economic cooperation development is also scheduled during this visit.
