Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Doha and Astana, there has been mutual support for the initiatives of the two countries in regional and international forums, including Qatar’s accession to membership in the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in 2015, and to the Islamic Organization for Food Security (IOFS).
The State of Qatar was also one of the first countries in the world to provide medical aid to the Republic of Kazakhstan in addressing the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in implementation of the directives of HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani. Qatar has also pumped investments into the Kazakh economy, especially in the field of infrastructure.
Within the framework of cultural cooperation between the two countries, a delegation from the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding visited Kazakhstan to see the most prominent cultural, artistic, and scientific facilities after choosing the Kazakh language for the award cycle in 2022. The State of Qatar also funded and opened the Islamic Finance Centre within the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (KazNU)- the largest university in the Republic of Kazakhstan – the first of its kind in the Central Asian region and will teach Kazakh students the principles of trading in financial stocks, financial engineering, and the necessary technical analysis of stocks and stock exchanges.
The tourism movement between the two countries is witnessing continuous growth, with the launch of the direct flight between the two countries by Qatar Airways in Nov. 2021, which contributes to opening the fields of economy and trade between the two countries in the future.
With regard to the financial cooperation between the two countries, the banking cooperation was revitalized with the visit of the Governor of Qatar Central Bank (QCB) to Nur-Sultan in Dec. 2019, which resulted in the Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) issuing Islamic sukuk in the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC).
Both countries are well located in terms of investment and business climate, proven by many international and local rating agencies, which gives businessmen in both countries the opportunity to enhance cooperation in various fields, especially agriculture, food security supply, education, healthcare, energy, renewable energy, mining, and other vital fields.
Kazakhstan is looking forward to benefiting from the great experience that the State of Qatar possesses, especially in the fields of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and petrochemical production, and Qatar is one of the largest exporters of liquefied natural gas in the world, and Kazakhstan is taking many measures that serve to promote economic diversification and protect foreign investment and seeks to be a commercial, financial, educational, health, and tourism center, as well as excellence in the field of food production.
Kazakhstan is located in Central Asia with a population of about 19 million people and is the ninth country in the world with a total area of 2,717,000 square km. It is the largest among Islamic countries, and the length of the surrounding borders exceeds 12,000 km, and it has a border with the Republic of Russia that exceeds 6,800 km, and it is the second longest land border in the world between two countries and overlooks the Caspian Sea with a beach of about 1,900 km. Kazakhstan is full of rivers and lakes, with more than 8,500 rivers and 4,800 lakes.
Kazakhstan is the strongest country in Central Asia economically, with a gross domestic product (GDP) of 60 percent of the region’s GDP, mainly because of its oil and gas industry. Kazakhstan also has ample mineral resources, and according to some estimates, it has oil reserves equivalent to those of Iraq located in deep layers, which explains the delay in exploiting them.
Kazakhstan has the second-largest reserves of uranium, chromium, lead, and zinc, the third-largest reserves of manganese, and the fifth-largest copper reserves and ranks among the top 10 in the export of coal, iron, and gold, and Kazakhstan is considered one of the largest global exporters of wheat, where wheat is grown in about 70 percent of its northern lands as well as an active movement for the development of livestock breeding, and has millions of heads of sheep.
Source: Qatar News Agency
