INVESTMENT COOPERATION BETWEEN KAZAKHSTAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

Abstract

In the early 1990s, Kazakhstan was faced with the dilemma of how to reform its economy. In this context, the republic began to build multilateral relations with many Middle Eastern countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, as well as with Turkey and Iran. The economy: energy, transport and communications, and the agro-industrial complex. According to experts, Kazakhstan’s economy in the 1990s received more than 80% of all direct investments in Central Asia. The necessary prerequisites for Kazakhstan’s integration into global and regional economic processes were put in place, and priority areas for the development of a market economy were selected. Memorandums and agreements with Middle Eastern states and
 institutions signed since then provide the basis for long-term cooperation.
Countries in the region are interested in Kazakhstan’s sustainable and progressive development through the establishment of  institutions, creation of conditions for market transformation, and a larger economic and political presence in Central Asia. Kazakhstan, in turn, seeks to use the potential of the Middle Eastern countries to ensure its economic and foreign policy security and help it integrate into the world economy, particularly by developing transport and pipeline routes, attracting investment, and gaining access to the latest technologies.
Agreements between the Republic of Kazakhstan and Middle Eastern countries in various sectors and contracts in transport and communications have enabled our country to modernize the economy, both national and regional. Middle Eastern business is represented in almost all sectors of Kazakhstan’s economy. Companies from the Middle East are building modern production facilities and creating new jobs in the market. Leaders of Middle Eastern countries, statesmen, and entrepreneurs think highly of Kazakhstan’s policy in attracting investment. A number of oil and gas companies are working successfully in the Kazakhstan sector of the Caspian Sea, and contacts in the humanitarian,  transport, and other spheres are developing rapidly.
For more than 25 years now, Kazakh- stan and Middle Eastern countries have been cooperating in virtually all key sectors of the economy: oil and gas, nuclear power, transport, and communications. Middle Eastern companies supply industrial and medical equipment, all kinds of goods, building materials, etc. Kazakhstan has an opportunity to draw on reform experience that consists in various forms of government regulation.