Embassy of Kazakhstan


Join our email list
  


Upcoming Events


 March 2024 
SMTWTFS
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Kazakhstan Music


Music sample 1

Music sample 2

Music sample 3 

 


News Bulletins


05/18/09

News Bulletin No 16


POLITICS

•    Korea, Kazakhstan Adopt Action Plan for Strategic Partnership
•    Kazakh Foreign Minister visits Germany
•    Kazakhstan to Continue Destroying Old ICBM Launchers


ECONOMY

•    Kazakhstan, S.Korea sign $5 bln worth of deals
•    Kazakhstan optimistic on economy


OTHER NEWS

•    Can Turkey become Kazakhstan?
•    Kazakhstan National TV Goes Tapeless
 

Category: General
Posted by: admin

POLITICS

Korea, Kazakhstan Adopt Action Plan for Strategic Partnership

Korea Times

South Korea and Kazakhstan adopted a joint action plan Wednesday to boost cooperation in various social and economic fields and agreed to develop their relations to a ``strategic partnership.''

At a summit between President Lee Myung-bak and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana, the two countries also signed nine memoranda of understanding that call for joint development of gas and oil and construction of a broadband Internet network in the Central Asian country.

``We produced a milestone achievement through this summit. Based on trust and mutual respect, Korea and Kazakhstan will seek 'win-win' relations in diplomacy, economy, education, environment and other areas,'' the two nations said in a joint statement.

Lee arrived in the Kazakh capital Tuesday as part of a five-day, two-nation trip that also took him to Uzbekistan. He will return home Thursday.

The action plan calls for closer cooperation between the two countries in the development of energy, natural resources and infrastructure, as well as in the fields of labor, culture, disease control and health.

Under the initiative, Korea will back Kazakh's move to host the 2011 Winter Asian Games and join the ASEAN Regional Forum, while Kazakhstan will provide full support for Korea in the hosting of the 2012 World Expo.

The agreement also gives Korean firms the right to explore the Jambil maritime oil block in the Caspian Sea. Korea will agree to provide funds and necessary technology to build a power plant near Balkhash Lake, a $2.5-billion project.

A South Korean consortium, including Samsung C&T and KEPCO, will hold a 65-percent stake in the project to build the power plant, according to South Korean officials.

Seoul also agreed to help build a new shipyard in Kuryk and provide assistance for the country's IT and railroad industries.

Astana signed four memorandums of understanding with South Korean firms, including the state-run Korea National Oil Corp., on joint development of its energy resources, a move that will help increase Seoul's energy security.

Lee and Nazarbayev also agreed to work together in fighting the worldwide recession, noting coordinated and continued efforts are the only solution to the ongoing global economic crisis.

In a business forum held later Wednesday, Lee called on South Korean businesses to more actively look for investment opportunities in Korea and abroad, saying there will always be new, uncontested, or ``blue ocean'' markets even in the most difficult times.

``Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have an abundance of natural resources that we need,'' Lee said. ``Our advances into the two countries will mean not only our presence in their markets, but also securing a gateway to neighboring nations such as Russia.''




Kazakh Foreign Minister visits Germany

Kazinform

Kazakh Minister of Foreign Affairs Marat Tazhin visited Germany on May 7; Kazinform refers to the Kazakh Embassy in Germany.

In the course of the visit the Minister negotiated with Vice Chancellor – Foreign Minister of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Appraising dynamical development of the Kazakh-German relations, the ministers discussed future joint actions on all spectrums of relationships.

It is necessary to note that this meeting was held in “The Year of Kazakhstan in Germany” opened by the heads of the states in Berlin on February 3, 2009.

At the meeting with journalists Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced strategic significance of the Central Asian region and the important role of Kazakhstan in it. In this connection Germany is interested in continuation of a bilateral dialog with Kazakhstan on topical issues of interaction.

In the course of the visit M.Tazhin and F.Steinmeier signed “Actions program within the framework of partnership for the sake of the future between Kazakhstan and Germany”. The Actions program is a “Road map” for specific joint projects implementation within the framework of polyfunctional partnership of the two states.

The sides will regularly hold political consultations at the foreign ministers level, effectively using opportunities opening in connection with Kazakhstan’s chairmanship in the OSCE in 2010. The German side will continue holding the OSCE trainings in the CORE for the Kazakh diplomats.

Significant prospects are opening for trade-economic relations of the two states. The sides agreed to continue implementation of joint innovation and investment projects.

The Kazakh Statistics Agency and Germany Federal Statistical Office will start implementation of projects of joint cooperation on the corresponding sectors this year.

The second Kazakh-German forum on energy policy will be held in Astana for increasing intensity of bilateral relations in the energy sphere.

The German side announced their wish to expand cooperation in the healthcare sphere many times, including within the framework of “100 schools and 100 hospitals” program.

The main issue of interaction of Kazakhstan and Germany is regional security, in particular, implementation of necessary measures on Afghanistan rehabilitation.



Kazakhstan to Continue Destroying Old ICBM Launchers

Nuclear Threat Initiative, May 14, 2009

The Kazakh Senate yesterday approved an amendment that would extend by seven years an agreement with the United States to destroy ICBM silo launchers left over from Kazakhstan's days as a Soviet republic, Interfax reported (see GSN, Nov. 13, 2008).

The amendment to the agreement, which also covers nuclear proliferation prevention and responses to emergencies, now awaits the signature of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev (Interfax I, May 13).

A Kazakh official yesterday also told senators of ongoing efforts to prevent terrorists from acquiring potential radiological "dirty bomb" material from a Soviet-era nuclear test site, Interfax reported. The government has reinforced physical barriers and plans to deploy 200 additional troops to guard tunnels at the shuttered Semipalatinsk site in eastern Kazakhstan.

"One hundred and eighty-one tunnels were once closed down on the Degelen site," Aset Magauov, deputy energy and mineral resources minister, told the Senate. "But after Sept. 11, the U.S. raised the issue of strengthening the physical barriers in them. An agreement was signed precisely for this reason and we continued this work with the United States' financial backing and with Russia's technical assistance to lift all potential threats of 'dirty bombs' emerging" (Interfax, May 13).



ECONOMY

Kazakhstan, S.Korea sign $5 bln worth of deals

Reuters

Kazakhstan and South Korea signed $5 billion worth of long-term energy and technology agreements on Wednesday in a move allowing South Korea to increase its presence in the oil-rich Central Asian nation. The agreements, signed during the visit of President Lee Myung-bak to the former Soviet republic, include deals in power, technology and other sectors, a Kazakh official said.
"We estimate the agreements are worth more than $5 billion," Kairat Kelimbetov, head of the Kazakh state Samruk-Kazyna holding, told reporters on the sidelines of the visit.

"That is not an immediate investment but will be actively invested in Kazakhstan over the next three to five years."

The agreements include participation by a South Korean consortium in a $2.5 billion power plant in Kazakhstan. Kelimbetov said the project's overall cost was $4.5 billion.

Under the deal, state-run Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) (015760.KS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and building company Samsung C&T (000830.KS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will hold a 65 percent stake in the Balkhash project. Samruk will hold 25 percent, and London-listed copper major Kazakhmys (KAZ.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will have 10 percent. [ID:nSEO243124]

The plant, to be built in southern Kazakhstan, is scheduled for completion by 2014 and will have a power generation capacity of between 1,200 and 1,500 megawatts.
Kelimbetov said Samruk would also set up a joint venture with another consortium of South Korean companies to invest about $1 billion in Kazakhstan's power and coal mining sectors but gave no details.

"South Korean companies have plenty of experience in industrial production," he said, adding the two nations would also cooperate in the technology and Internet promotion.

Kazakhstan's ambition is to diversify its economy, currently heavily dependent on oil, and develop new sectors and modernise its Soviet-era infrastructure. South Korea, for its part, is keen to gain access to Central Asian energy sources.



Kazakhstan optimistic on economy

BBC News

Kazakhstan's economy will continue to grow even as the global economic crisis hits its banks, the governor of the nation's central bank has said.

The collapse in oil and gas, along with a declining appetite for investment in developing economies has hurt the central Asian republic.

But Grigoriy Marchenko told the BBC that while economic growth would "be limited", it would not be negative.

And the bank's governor forecast growth of between 2% and 3% in 2010.

Over-borrowing

Since 2000, the economy of Kazakhstan has grown by nearly 10% every year on rising oil, cotton and wheat prices, but has hit difficulties.

The oil boom also encouraged Kazakh banks to borrow heavily from international sources.

They had $45bn (£29.5bn) of foreign debt when the US subprime crisis erupted - a situation made even less tenable by the 18% devaluation of the country's currency, the tenge, in February.

Just as banks in the United Kingdom and United States have turned to their governments for assistance, so have those in Kazakhstan.

The government assumed some of the banks debts, laying down strict terms for their involvement in helping to recapitalise the banks.

"It was clear that some of the large Kazakh banks have over-borrowed," Mr Marchenko said. "The bulk of this problem has been resolved already."

He added: "We believe that this year, GDP growth will be very limited, 0 to 1%, but still it won't be negative.

"Next year, we're expecting growth of 2% to 3% and I think that after the overall crisis is over the Kazakh economy will be growing 5% to 7% per year."

Credit ratings agencies are less optimistic, with Fitch estimating Kazakhstan's GDP will fall by 5% next year with Standard & Poor's expecting a 3% fall.

Mr Marchenko said measures would be taken to minimise future problems of over-borrowing - including moving to a model which would only allow companies and individuals whose cashflow was in dollars to borrow in the US currency.

However this measure "won't be immediately because banks need time to prepare for it and we also need a properly functioning market for futures and forwards," he said.



OTHER NEWS

Can Turkey become Kazakhstan?

By Ihsan Yilmaz, Today’s Zaman, Turkey

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, many experts were hoping that pluralist democratic structures would be established in the Central Asian states. Yet, the Central Asian states have experienced divergent political developments. While some of them succeeded to some extent in establishing a multi-party system, albeit with limitations, in some others, legal and political structures became more repressive than even those of the Gorbachev era. Whilst in the region totalitarianism is symbolized by Turkmenistan and authoritarianism is chiefly exemplified by Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan has recently witnessed the emergence of a chaotic democratic structure. Tajikistan has lived a totally different experience after the civil war of 1992-1997, and despite democratic deficiencies, it has accommodated opposition forces and parties in its power structure. Kazakhstan has had a different experience than all other countries in the region.

In spite of the autocratic leadership centered on Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country has become a semi-authoritarian polity with partial democratization. Despite the autocratic structural constraints, political opposition has been permitted to a limited extent by the regime. Since the regime has followed a balancing strategy in its multivectoral foreign policy between Russia and the West, it has in practice responded positively to the criticisms of the West with regards to its democratic deficiencies, even though Kazakh rulers rhetorically opposed these criticisms. The forthcoming Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) chairmanship of Kazakhstan in 2010 has become a carrot towards more democratization in the country.

Political stability and vast natural resources have helped the country develop an economy larger than all the other Central Asian economies combined. The country has a territory larger than Western Europe. Ethnically, the country is diverse, with Kazakhs making up only just over half the population, Russians comprising over a quarter and smaller Ukrainian, German, Chechen, Kurd, Korean and Central Asian minorities. The Nazarbayev government has been trying to strike a delicate balance between developing a cohesive national identity and respecting the rights of both minorities and the majority.

The state respects people's religions, faiths and cultures. It stays away from a utopian homogenization rhetoric. And even more, Nazarbayev is proud to have different religions, ethnicities and cultures represented in the country. In that respect, he seems to be aware of the disastrous experiences of some other countries. Although several media outlets are dominated either by the state or by his relatives, he is regularly criticized in the media, sui generis as far as the Central Asian countries are concerned. There are regular elections and political parties are at least allowed to compete in the elections. Even though foreign observers have reported irregularities in the elections, which Nazarbayev's party has constantly won with landslide victories, I suspect that similar to Putin in Russia, even if there were non-flawed elections, Nazarbayev could easily win, as it seems that he is well aware of the spirit of times, does not oppress his people and thus there is no potential for a strong opposition. Several people I spoke to, including many Turks residing in the country, underlined that people like him and are happy to live in Kazakhstan. Although Russians resent that there aren't dual-nationality rights, ethnic minorities do not suffer oppression in the country, and what's more, nine out of the 107 Lower House (Mazhlis) members are elected by the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan, a presidentially appointed advisory body designed to represent the country's ethnic minorities.

The level of economic, social, inter-ethnic and political development in the country in less than two decades is truly remarkable, and instead of comparing Turkey to Iran, Algeria or Malaysia, our anti-democrats and militarists should discuss if Turkey could one day achieve what Kazakhstan has achieved in terms of non-militarism, pluralism, diversity and being a non-ideological and faith-friendly state.


Kazakhstan National TV Goes Tapeless

Government Video

RTRK Kazakhstan, the central Asian country’s national television channel, has a new tapeless workflow, replacing the former post and broadcasting infrastructure built completely around tape-based equipment.

United Kingdom-based integrator Marquis Broadcast said the channel has purchased the company's Medway media transfer and format conversion system to provide the media highway for the new tapeless workflow.

RTRK Kazakhstan is now able to move media files between production workstations without tape. After ingest, operators carry out a low-resolution edit using SGT cut editors. These files are sent via Medway to Avid nonlinear editing systems for finishing. When complete, the files are sent to an Omneon server ready for broadcasting.

“With Medway, we’ve implemented major changes in the way we work and have realised a number of big improvements in terms of efficiency and quality,” said RTRK Kazakhstan Chief Engineer Azat Sergibaev. “We can move files around easily between systems without worrying about formats or the technicalities of file integration.”

Medway enables media files from multiple sources to be moved between different vendor platforms without incurring bottlenecks in workflow caused by file incompatibility. Medway automatically rewraps the media and its associated metadata in the appropriate formats.

Medway was supplied to RTRK Kazakhstan by TVC, Marquis Broadcast’s business partner for Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Kazakhstan.