Taking advantage of the friendly relationship between Shanghai and Almaty, China Kazakhstan commercial cooperation has reached a new level. Recently, Chinese and Kazakh enterprises signed a cooperation agreement worth over 2.7 billion US dollars (over 1.2 trillion tenge), which not only marks the tightening of economic and trade ties between cities in the two countries, but also indicates that Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, will usher in a new round of infrastructure upgrades driven by Chinese capital and technology.

2.7 billion US dollars injected into the real economy

This signing is not a simple intention document, but involves the substantive implementation of joint investment projects. As the former capital and financial center of Kazakhstan, Almaty not only has the largest stock of 6000 Sino Kazakhstan joint ventures in the country, but also has become a key node of the the Belt and Road in Central Asia due to its geographical advantages adjacent to China and Kyrgyzstan. Almaty Mayor Darhan Satbard expressed his desire to replicate Shanghai's successful experience in urban comprehensive development and modern transportation at the forum, and explicitly invited Shanghai Architectural Design Institute and engineering institutions to join the project.

Leading enterprises each perform their own duties

From the leaked list of attendees, it can be seen that this round of cooperation has extended from traditional energy to high-end manufacturing and urban services. In addition to veteran energy and packaging companies such as Zhongman Petroleum and Origen continuing to deepen their cultivation, manufacturing and infrastructure giants such as SAIC Group, Xizi Elevator, and Shanghai Construction Engineering Group have collectively appeared, demonstrating the huge demand for Almaty in urban transportation, high-rise buildings, and machinery manufacturing. It is particularly noteworthy that the participation of YTO Express implies that both parties are committed to building a new cross-border logistics channel, and the addition of financial institution Bank of China Shanghai Branch provides necessary funding for these heavy asset projects.

Green and innovation become new growth poles

The direction of financial, green energy, and high-tech cooperation pointed out by Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng is highly in line with Kazakhstan's current transformation needs. According to supplementary information, Kazakhstan is vigorously promoting a green economy plan aimed at utilizing its abundant wind and solar energy resources. In this forum, representatives from the fields of medical pharmaceuticals and high-tech attended, indicating that the cooperation between the two sides is attempting to break through the simple buying and selling of resources and climb into high value-added fields such as digital economy and biomedicine. Keywords: the Belt and Road, enterprise cooperation

From the existing foundation of 6000 joint ventures to the current incremental investment of 2.7 billion US dollars, China Kazakhstan cooperation is shifting from quantitative accumulation to qualitative leap.Editor/Cheng Liting