On February 5th, Kazakhstani Prime Minister Volezas Bektinov met with visiting Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobahidze in Astana. Both sides conducted in-depth discussions on bilateral cooperation, with a focus on the development of trade and economic relations, and explored cooperation opportunities in areas such as transportation and logistics, petroleum and petroleum product transportation, digital technology, agriculture, and tourism.

At present, both sides are relying on the framework of the Intergovernmental Joint Committee to promote the growth of bilateral trade volume and accelerate the implementation of the "2023-2026 Roadmap for Expanding Bilateral Trade Volume". Kazakhstan's export categories continue to expand, and the pace of non raw material goods entering the Georgian market is accelerating. At present, both sides are promoting the entry of 35 Kazakhstan products (with a total value exceeding 66 million US dollars) into the Georgian market, covering industries such as petrochemicals, metallurgy, food industry, chemical and machinery manufacturing.

In terms of transportation cooperation, both sides focused on discussing how to fully utilize the potential of the trans Caspian international transportation route to strengthen cross-border transportation. It is expected that the relevant measures will increase the annual transportation capacity of the Central Passage to 10 million tons by 2027. At the same time, both parties agree that it is necessary to continuously optimize customs clearance conditions, shorten the delivery time of goods, and further increase the transportation volume of the route to enhance its competitiveness.

In terms of energy cooperation, both sides exchanged views on the international transportation of petroleum and petroleum products. In 2023, Kazakhstan will export a total of 1.4 million tons of oil to the international market through the Baku Tbilisi Ceyhan pipeline, with plans to gradually increase it to 2.2 million tons per year in the future.

Agricultural cooperation is also a key area of concern for both parties. In 2024, the trade volume of agricultural and industrial complex products between Kazakhstan and Georgia increased by 12.3% year-on-year, reaching 71.2 million US dollars. Kazakh enterprises have the potential to expand their supply of agricultural products such as wheat, flour, vegetable oil, macaroni, lamb, beef, dairy products, candies, etc. to the Georgian market.

In addition, both sides also discussed deepening cooperation in the fields of digitalization and tourism, and exchanged relevant experiences.

At the end of the talks, the two prime ministers unanimously expressed their commitment to deepening the partnership in the fields of economy, trade, culture, and humanities, and promoting cooperation between the two countries to a higher level. (This article is from the official website of Jian Dao www.seetao.com. Reproduction without permission is prohibited, otherwise it will be prosecuted. Please indicate Jian Dao website+original link when reprinting.) Jian Dao website strategy column editor/Li Xiu'e