In this issue:
Yushchenko Visits Kazakhstan, Seeks Broader Cooperation in Energy and Space
Harvard Professors Help Kazakhstan Develop Economic Policies
Kazakhs Honor Victims of Political Repression
In the neighborhood:
Where is the grocery store? --- Azyk-tylik dukeni kai zherde?
Where do I park my car? --- Kaida mashineni kaldyruga bolady?
Is there a garage? --- Bul zherde garazh barma?
Is there a good school for my children? --- Menim balalaryma ungailya mektep barma?
Yushchenko Visits Kazakhstan, Seeks
Broader Cooperation in Energy and Space
President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine visited Astana May 30 for talks with President Nursultan Nazarbayev seeking broader cooperation in energy, machinery building and space, as well as for discussions of the Single Economic Space (SES).
President Yushchenko offered Kazakhstan the opportunity to develop a “road map” for the next two years which will guide the two governments as they work together for closer economic and political links.
“The development of relations in the oil and gas industries, transit and production is very important for us, as is the cooperation in machinery building, including agricultural machinery, and cooperation in space and aviation,” the Ukrainian President said.
The scope of bilateral trade and economic cooperation, amounting to US$1 billion annually, provides plenty of opportunities for expansion.
President Nazarbayev, speaking at a news conference in Astana, said Kazakhstan is interested in extending the Odessa-Brody pipeline and is prepared to be a shareholder in the project. The President said if the pipeline is lengthened all the way to Gdansk in Poland, it will be able to export Kazakh oil onward to northern European markets and beyond. The oil for such a pipeline would come by the Baku-Supsa pipeline and the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s line to Novorossiisk. Both Supsa and Novorossiisk are Black Sea ports in Georgia and Russia. Odessa is a Black Sea port in Ukraine.
Other energy related projects include a Ukrainian proposal to link a sea oil terminal and the Pridneprovskaya system of pipelines. There is also Kazakh interest in buying the Odessa refinery.
President Nazarbayev said the two governments will work out specific proposals regarding these oil issues and “a concrete program so that we knew what to do, who will do it, and who to negotiate and agree with.” Similar instructions were given about Kazakh gas exports to Ukraine.
Regarding space cooperation, the two presidents discussed the possibilities of using Kazakhstan’s strategic launch pads for Ukraine’s Zenith rocket, which is now launched from the Pacific.
Perhaps the largest political issue on the agenda was the
future of the Single Economic Space, an integration progress
which includes Kazakhstan, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
The President of Kazakhstan said he believes Ukraine’s
participation in the SES is “beneficial for both Ukraine and
Kazakhstan, and is needed by all countries of the SES,
especially Kazakhstan. The problems with transporting
Kazakh hydrocarbons to the Ukrainian markets and beyond
to Europe can only be solved within the SES.”
President Yushchenko said the negotiations have helped
the two countries “synchronize their positions on many
international issues, including the SES.” He said “we
approach this from the position of pragmatism.” Yushchenko
believes what is needed currently is the creation of common
transit space, unified tariffs and unified operations of border
control and customs. “If we are able to solve these three
issues soon, all other issues, including cooperation in the
humanitarian sphere, movement of workers and capital will
automatically be solved.”
Following the meetings in Astana, the two presidents
signed a joint statement. A number of other agreements
were signed.
President Yushchenko then visited Aktau on the Caspian
Sea to pay tribute to Taras Shevchenko, one of the
greatest Ukrainian poets, who spent seven years of exile
there during tsarist times.
Harvard Professors Help Kazakhstan Develop Economic Policies
Two economics professors from Harvard University with extensive experience in emerging markets have visited Kazakhstan this week as part of ongoing consultations aimed at developing economic policies for sustainable growth.
Ricardo Hausmann, Professor of the Practice of Economic Development, and Andres Velasco, Professor of International Finance and Development, both with Harvard’s Kennedy School, met Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov in Astana on May 31 to discuss specific measures to avoid overheating the Kazakh economy which has grown 50 percent in five years, and the ‘Dutch disease’ of skewed economic development in favor of a dominant oil industry.
At the same meeting, PM Akhmetov called Kazakhstan “a country with a strong raw materials sector in the economy.” He noted “despite a rather stable economic growth for the past six years and a stable GDP growth of at least 9 percent annually, it is not possible to talk about sustainable growth yet. That is a much wider concept.”
The Prime Minister said greater scrutiny is needed of certain “negative trends” in the Kazakh economy. ‘Dutch disease’ is one such trend, and “its first symptoms are already noticeable in our economy,” PM Akhmetov admitted. Another challenge for the Kazakh economy lies in the fact that “productivity growth lags behind the growth rates for social expenditures of the state which have grown from 23% of GDP to 25% within the past two years.”
The PM hopes joint research with Harvard will develop measures to improve economic policies, including those aimed at “more efficient management of oil revenues” and “further development of clusters in the economy.”
Professor Hausmann, who served in the past as Chair of the IMF-World Bank Development Committee, noted “impressive progress” in the Kazakh economy in recent years, saying “the main task now is to reach success in the most sustainable and stable way.”
He observed that in Kazakhstan there is “a danger of overheating when the economy is trying to grow faster than it can and of the Dutch disease when the economy has no room for non-oil sectors.”
The professors’ visit to Kazakhstan continues, including consultations with leaders of the Presidential Administration, the National Bank, the Parliament, ministries of economy, finance, industry and trade, as well as in country representatives of the World Bank.
In 2003, Kazakhstan approved the Strategy for Industrial and Innovation Development (SIID) aiming at further development non-oil sectors. Progress has been made in terms of thinking through ways to expand non-oil industries and increase their competitiveness. Necessary conditions have been created. Still, the oil sector continues its boom, serving as a source of both large cash flows and challenges for economic development. (To learn more about opportunities the Kazakh economy presents for U.S. businesses visit the webpage for the upcoming investment conference in San Diego, September 8-9, 2005.)
Kazakhs Honor Victims of Political Repression
People across Kazakhstan marked May 31 as the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression as they laid wreaths at existing memorials and dedicated new ones. Those commemorating the date included many descendants and relatives of the victims.
Kazakhstan, which was home to almost a dozen GULAG camps during the years of Stalin’s purges in the middle of the 20th Century, has remembered victims of political repression on May 31 since 1997.
GULAG, immortalized by Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn in “The GULAG Archipelago”, was a system of camps for “enemies of the state” sent there as part of widespread purges which devastated lives of millions of people in the former Soviet Union.
Kazakhstan, particularly the northern region with its rich natural resources and harsh winter climate, was chosen by Soviet rules of that time to house eleven GULAG camps, a significant part of the overall system where inmates were made to do harsh forced labor, such as coal mining. The GULAG camps were spread across Kazakhstan, including ALZHIR, Karlag, Dalnii, Stepnoi, Peschannyi, Kamyshlag, Aktyubinski, Dzhezkazganlag, Petropavlovskii, Kingir and Ust-Kamenogorski. These names, such as ALZHIR, a Russian acronym of the Akmolinskii Camp for Wives of Traitors of the Motherland, hide countless stories of tragedy and drama.
Kazakhstan’s Office of the Prosecutor General estimates that since independence in 1991 more than 325,000 people illegally repressed half a century ago have been rehabilitated.
Things to Watch:
- Presidents Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and Vladimir Putin of Russia will attend the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in south western Kazakhstan on June 2. The commemoration will host more than 500 veterans of the Cosmodrome from Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus, and will feature a cornerstone laying ceremony for the future Kazakh-Russian space complex “Baiterek.” Earlier this week, Russian Air Force General Talgat Musabayev, an ethnic Kazakh and a renowned Russian cosmonaut, was appointed the first Director General of Baiterek.
- A third session of the Secretariat of the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions takes place in Kazakhstan June 1 and 2 in preparation for the upcoming second Congress slated for the fall of 2006 in Astana.
- A major international business conference, “Kazakhstan Draws a New Wave of Investment: Strategies for Diversification and Sustainable Growth”, will take place in Almaty on June 14-16. The conference is co-organized by the Government of Kazakhstan, the Asia Society and the Eurasian Media Forum. It is expected to feature presentations by President Nazarbayev, Foreign Minister Kassymzhomart Tokaev, Energy Minister Vladimir Shkolnik, Asia Society Chairman Amb. Richard Holbrooke, as well as George Soros, Founder and Chairman of the Open Society Institute. Information about the conference is available here.
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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
