China's President Xi Jinping on relations between China and Kazakhstan

China's President Xi Jinping is to arrive in Kazakhstan on a state visit September 6-8. On the forthcoming visit the two heads of state are to sign a joint declaration to further the bilateral strategic partnership.

At the threshold of his visit to Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states he gave an interview for KazTAG.

“Kazakhstan and China are good neighbors and strategic partners. For the 21 years since the diplomatic ties were established the two nations have been developing the bilateral relations at fast pace. For China, developing the bilateral relations is a foreign policy priority. One may say the Chinese-Kazakh relations have hit record high, opening unsurpassed opportunities for the multifaceted strategic partnership”, he believes.

“China is the largest trade partner of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is ranked 2nd among China’s trade partners within the CIS. The two nations have set a goal to bring the trade turnover figure to $40 billion by 2015. Reaching the goal hinges on joint efforts. We need to (…) retain the positive dynamics of the O&G cooperation and to define opportunities to unleash the full potential of cooperation in agriculture, transport, high tech, telecommunications, chemicals. It’s crucial to galvanize humanitarian exchanges (…)”, President Xi Jinping said.

According to him, “the current state of the Chinese economy is very favorable. The H1 GDP growth stood at 7.6%. It’s quite a high figure as compared to those of some other nations. If we had followed the usual path of development, the figure would have been higher. However, we have opted for economic restructuring, for modernization of economic development. We allowed a certain slowing of the economy growth rates to facilitate a more beneficial long-term development of the economy”.

“China is the 2nd largest economy of the world. We do have all preconditions to secure a stable and healthy development of the economy, shape a vast market for other countries and make a greater contribution to the global economy”.

“The bilateral trade turnover in 2012 stood at $23.9 billion. We set an ambition goal to bring the figure up to $40 billion by 2015”, Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov told a briefing August 19 following his talks with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital city.