Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev arrived here last night – his third visit to Malaysia since 1996 – to seek Malaysia's expertise in specific fields.

“We have always admired Malaysia's model of development,” Kazakh ambassador to Malaysia, Mukhtar Tileuberdi, told StarBiz.

“While you have your Vision 2020, Kazakhstan wants to be developed by 2030. Economically, we want to follow the Malaysian model of development.''
Nursultan Nazarbayev
Things have certainly been looking up for the nation of 15.1 million people since gaining its independence in 1991 following the fall of the Soviet Union.

In 2002, Kazakhstan was the first of the CIS nations to be granted market economy status by the United States.

Economic growth has been remarkable - Gross Domestic Product grew by 8.3% last year while the forecast for 2006 and 2007 is at 8.5% and 9.4% respectively.

The country has one of the world's richest reserves of oil and gas, with up to 22 billion barrels of crude reserves.

Since independence, there has been major foreign investment in the Caspian oil sector. Oil development has resulted in rapid economic growth.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have acknowledged Kazakhstan as one of the fastest developing economies in the world, and this led to Nazarbayev's recent pronouncement that the republic would become one of the 50 most developed countries in the world and, in the next seven years, be among the top 10 oil exporters.

Tileuberdi said his president's visit was crucial as Kazakhstan was on the verge of development. With a territory of 2.7 million sq km, Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world.

“One of our priorities now is to promote ICT (information communication technology) development among our people. A lot has to be done in this field, and Kazakhstan is looking forward to receiving assistance from Malaysia,'' he said.

Among others, he said, the president would visit the National Registration Department to be briefed on the MyKad identity card system and also visit the Multimedia Development Corp (MDC) and Iris Corp.

“Kazakhstan is also in need of more housing for its people, and this is a matter that will be discussed here. Biotechnological advancements in Malaysia are also of interest to us,'' he said.

Although the president had visited the country more than a decade ago, many of the proposals made then had to be put on hold due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
Mukhtar Tileberdi
“So, his visit this time will be very significant in bilateral terms. There are many areas to review,'' he said.

Bilateral trade had tripled to US$60mil last year but this, he said, was still far from satisfactory.

“Kazakhstan is a landlocked country, and there are logistical problems when it comes to movement of goods to and from the country.

“Most goods to Kazakhstan are being sent via Dubai and China. We think that the best way is to ship the goods to China's ports and then move them to Kazakhstan by rail,'' said Tileuberdi, who was posted here in 2004.

The envoy said besides the focus on ICT, the Kazakh government would also emphasise on the petrochemical, textile, food processing, tourism and finance industries.

“We are setting up an ICT Park in Almaty and also plan to establish special economic zones in various parts of the country,'' he added.

The envoy said there was also a need to have direct air links between Astana, the Kazakh capital, and Kuala Lumpur.

“We hope Air Astana and Malaysia Airlines can consider introducing the service on a code-share basis. This would boost the tourism potential between our countries. Malaysia is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic country and so is Kazakhstan, which is home to people of over 100 nationalities,'' he said.

Nazarbayev is not the only leader from the Commonwealth of Independent States to promote ties with Malaysia. Uzbek president Islam Karimov travelled here in November last year, while the then-Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev came here in 2002.