In this issue:
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan Will Work toward Free Trade Zone
Bolashak Scholarships to Skyrocket from 100 to 3,000
Kazakhs Migrate to Yale
Kazakhstan’s Home Mortgage Market Triples Every Year
Free trade zone ---Erkin sauda aimagy
What do you do for a living?---Kim bolyp zhumys isteisiz?
Are you married or single? ---Syz yilengen sizbe aielde boidak syzba?
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan Will Work toward Free Trade Zone
Presidents Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan agreed on March 3 to have their countries work toward creating a free trade zone in a development which could potentially have major implications for Central Asia’s future.
The two countries boast the largest and most sophisticated economies in Central Asia. Kazakhstan, with the population of 15 million people, has an economy worth US$105.3 billion at purchasing power parity, while Uzbekistan with 26 million people had a GDP of US$44 billion. Statistics are for 2003, the latest available from the CIA World Factbook.
The two presidents spoke by telephone Thursday, according to the President of Kazakhstan press office, and agreed to create a high level bilateral group to draft a document creating a mechanism for the establishment of a free trade zone. Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Sauat Mynbayev and Uzbekistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov will chair the group. The presidents agreed they would be the ones to sign the final agreement.
This agreement comes at a time of renewed efforts to boost regional cooperation. One of President Nazarbayev’s key new initiatives in his February 18 state of the nation address was a call to set up a Union of Central Asian States based on the EU model. The President noted Central Asian nations, which used to be part of the Soviet Union and its unified economy, even after 15 years of independent development, have much more in common than the European countries had before they began integration half a century ago. During the phone call, President Karimov said he supported the calls of his counterpart’s address.
Fighting terrorism and extremism was also on the agenda of the phone call, as well as solving problems of water and electricity supplies in the region. The issue of water has been a double edged one in recent years, shortages in the summer and flooding in early spring. Even today, the waters of the Syr Darya River have flooded some villages in the south of Kazakhstan and are threatening to do more damage in the coming days. Some damage is averted through the help of the Uzbeks, who divert excess water into a special reservoir before it can flood in Kazakhstan. The two presidents agreed to discuss these issues further with other leaders of the region, and work towards creating transportation and hydropower consortiums.
Bolashak Scholarships to Skyrocket from 100 to 3,000
Kazakhstan’s Presidential scholarships, which have helped 800 people from Kazakhstan earn masters degrees in Western universities since 1993, will now be available to 3,000 aspiring candidates each year.
The message that Kazakhstan is going to expand its Bolashak (or Future) scholarships program from today’s level of roughly 100 per year to 3,000 annually was delivered by President Nursultan Nazarbayev in his state of the nation address on February 18.
This program has helped Kazakhstan breed a new generation of government managers needed to steer the country away from its Soviet past. Bolashak graduates, or Bolashakers as they call themselves, today include deputy ministers, bureau chiefs in various ministries, and the head of the National Agency on Civil Service, Gabidulla Abdrakhimov.
Speaking at an event in Astana on March 1 to highlight the new details of the President’s proposals, Mr. Abdrakhimov, who also serves as chairman of the Association of Bolashakers, praised the program: “It is one of the most transparent, clean and honest scholarships in Kazakhstan. All of my Bolashaker friends come from average families. The only “connections” one needs to have to get into it are language skills and intellect.”
The new proposals are meant to ensure Kazakhstan keeps up with its ambitious drive to develop a high technology based, English speaking economy for the 21st Century. The proposals include the expansion of the list of professions covered by scholarships and other changes designed to make it easier for young people to take part. The all paid scholarships cover tuition and mandatory university fees, book allowances as well as living and food expenses.
In addition to business administration, Bolashak scholars are majoring in economics, oil and gas engineering, agricultural, transport and computer engineering, accounting, software engineering, international relations and public affairs at universities in many countries.
Bolashakers themselves believe scholarships are the most effective investment a young country can make in its future. “A country like ours needs to invest in knowledge and the younger generation so they can help our country to be more prosperous in the future,” explained Leila Kulbaeva, a 2004 graduate of Columbia University in New York. “Studying abroad is not all about just getting knowledge; it’s also about getting life experience,” said another Bolashaker, Gani Nassimoldin, a 2003 graduate of Stanford University in California.
Kazakhs Migrate to Yale
Scores of senior officials from Kazakhstan’s government ministries will flock to Yale University next week for a special fast paced learning session to raise their professionalism in building an innovation based economy.
Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov met the group in Astana and said their trip to the U.S., the first of its kind, begins a brand new stage of educational training for top officials in the Government which will help raise their professionalism and create higher levels of competitiveness and job motivation.
The trip was put together following the call last year by President Nazarbayev to improve the level of professionalism in government through education abroad.
The group includes deputy ministers of agriculture, economy and budget planning, energy and mineral resources, environment, education and science, finance, healthcare, industry and trade, justice, labor, transport and communications, as well as senior officials from these and other government agencies.
Their two week curriculum will include learning about industrial and innovation experience in other countries, human resources management in the public sector, and other economic development issues.
Kazakhstan’s Home Mortgage Market Triples Every Year
Kazakhstan’s home mortgage market, in existence only since 2000, has been growing at an astounding pace, tripling annually, and is projected to reach US$1.5 billion by 2008, Bank TuranAlem announced this week.
Bank TuranAlem, one of Kazakhstan’s largest private banks, has been active in providing home mortgages to clients through its branch company, Bank TuranAlem-Ipoteka. It currently services a quarter of all mortgages in Kazakhstan.
In February 2005, the bank signed an agreement with the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development for a US$10 million credit line for home mortgages over the next 10 years.
Things to Watch:
- Rizabek Yelemanov, a Kazakh scientist and explorer who has made it three times into the Guinness Book of Records for his adventurous travels, is looking for one more listing: On May 15, 2005, he and his team of 11 will embark on a 12 month journey around Asian nations, using nine camels as their means of transportation. Their goals are to promote better understanding among Asian peoples and to search for signs of the first appearance of ancient man in Kazakhstan.
- Central Asian Cultural Exchange, a private nonprofit organization seeking to promote better understanding in the United States of the diverse cultures of the region, is set to launch in Washington, DC, on March 6.
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News Bulletin of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the USA and Canada
(Compiled from own sources and agency reports)
Contact person: Roman Vassilenko
1401 16th Street NW, Washington DC 20036
Tel.: 202 232 5488, ext. 104, Fax: 202 232 5845
