A meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council was held in Almaty on February 2, attended by heads of government of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) member countries — Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia.
Kazakhstan Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov reminded that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the signing of the EEU Treaty. Today it is a dynamically developing integration association with a population of 190 million people, labor market of over 93 million people and GDP of $2.7 trillion. At the same time, mutual trade of member states from 2015 to 2022 has doubled and reached $85 billion.
“A landmark event of the past year was the adoption of the Eurasian Economic Way Declaration. This document defines the key directions of integration processes in the Eurasian space for the next 5 years. The implementation of the Declaration will create conditions for the development of our economies. We will have to make every effort to implement specific economic projects,” the Kazakh Prime Minister said.
Smailov emphasized that the EEU is located at the crossroads of East and West, North and South, which has always been a competitive advantage of the region.
“Kazakhstan attaches special importance to the development of transit and transportation infrastructure. Over the past 15 years, our country has allocated more than $35 billion for this purpose. A logistics center in Lianyungang, a dry port Khorgos, a transit highway Western Europe – Western China, a railway corridor from China to Iran have been launched. Modernization of Caspian sea ports Kuryk and Aktau has been carried out,” Smailov said, adding that the construction of Kazakhstan’s terminal in Chinese Xi’an was launched. Together with the Russian, Turkmen, Indian and Iranian parties, work is being carried out on the synchronous development of the eastern route of the North-South corridor.
“We consider it important to further increase the capacity of international corridors, logistics terminals and checkpoints of our countries. I invite all EEU countries to implement joint projects to develop transit and transportation infrastructure,” the Prime Minister said.
The head of the Kazakh Government emphasized that the foundation of the integration association remains the implementation of the “four freedoms” and the basic principles of the EEU Treaty. “Our exporters often face cases of hidden restrictions. Therefore, the issue of realization of one of the four freedoms – the freedom of movement of goods remains urgent for us. It is necessary to form a common barrier-free market and ensure unimpeded transit of goods to third countries. This should be facilitated by digitalization of all major processes,” Smailov said.
