Hyderabad, December 12th, 2019: On December 11-12, 2019, Kazakh delegation headed by H.E. Ambassador of Kazakhstan to India Mr. Yerlan Alimbayev paid a working visit to the state of Telangana. Capital of the state - Hyderabad, is well-known as one of the biggest IT, industrial, commercial, pharmaceutical, educational, cultural and tourism center in South-Central India.
Speaking on the occasion H.E. Mr Yerlan Alimbayev said, Hyderabad, Telanagana and Andhra Pradesh, hold tremendous potential in terms of trade for Kazakhstan, our purpose of the visit is to open the borders between the two countries , to establish closer relation and have sister state relationships with our provinces and Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Nawab Mir Nasir Ali Khan, MD, MAK Projects, will be shortly appointed, in a couple of weeks, as the Honorary Counsel General of our country at Hyderabad for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, states. We will also be opening a Honorary Consulate in Hyderabad shortly. Kazakhstan has a very huge tourism potential and economic and investment opportunities. For the last two years we are opening up our economy and politically Kazakhstan is very stable. Our relations with India are excellent and share similar positions on many issues in the international relations. We have a huge trade turnover between both the countries, which has touched $1.2 billion and expected to reach $1.5 bn by the end of this year. We see lot of symbiosis between Hyderabad and Kazakhstan, share common culture and economic affinity. With India we have formed six joint working groups and one Inter- governmental commission. we recently had a Joint working group meeting on transport and logistics to fix a route for transportation of cargo, which is viable and economical, it will be through sea to Iran and by Road and rail through Turkmenistan, this will significantly reduce the travel time and costs. We want Indian investors to invest in mining, oil refinery, infrastructure, agriculture and food processing, machinery production. Indian products being manufactured in Kazakhstan will be the best option, so we invite all investors from Telaangana and Andhra Pradesh, we are ready to support them. We met the business community in Hyderabad and found the main three sectors to Industrial sector, Infrastructure and environment sectors. In Hyderabad, our candidate Nawab Mir Nasir Ali Khan will be the Honorary Counsel and he will be our focal point and help us in growing our relations with Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The tourists from India is growing at 40% year on year, also last year 25000 Kazak nationals visited India for medical needs. The India movie industry is showing interest in shooting in Kazakhstan. Yesterday Hema Malini said she is visiting Kazakhstan for a movie shooting. The latest trend is Indian youth are looking at Kazakhstan as a wedding destination.
Nawab Mir Nasir Ali Khan said, The opportunities for business and trade with Kazakhstan are enormous and hold great promise. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh would be vital in fostering a strong relationship with the country. From Tollywood Allu Arvind has shown keen interest to visit and explore the country for his future film projects, he is currently relying on European locations and would lead a delegation from Tollywood next month to Kazakhstan to explore the opportunities for future projects. The cooperation between Kazakhstan and Hyderabad business communities will give a great opportunity and necessary impulse for developing of bilateral ties in IT, healthcare, shipping, finance, education, trade and investments spheres. From Hyderabad, the few interactions H.E. Mr Yerlan Alimbayev had with business houses yesterday the outcomes are, Dr Reddy's lab is already doing business in Kazakhstan, Ramky group has shown interest to invest there and L&T could also be looked at as a partner for metro rail in the country. Kazakhstan is the largest exporter of uranium to India. Most of the royal families in India are from Central Asia, including Mughals, Nizams are from Central Asia and India has a long relationship with Central Asia.
H.E. Mr Yerlan Alimbayev said “For the past 28 years Kazakhstan has achieved remarkable progress. The GDP grew from 11 billion in 1993 to the current 171 billion US dollars. More than 300 billion US dollars of direct investments were attracted to the economy”, -mentioned the Kazakh diplomat at the meeting with media, tourism industry and business people in Hyderabad.
Speaking about the modern Kazakh-Indian relations, Ambassador noted that India is one of the key political, trade, economic and investment partners for Kazakhstan. In 27 years, Kazakh-Indian relations have acquired the status of strategic partnership. Today, Nur-Sultan and New Delhi share similar positions on issues of regional and global cooperation and development agenda.
Kazakhstan is the main trading partner of India in Central Asia. Trade turnover amounts to 1.2 billion US dollars for 9 months of 2019 and is expected to reach 1.5 billion US dollars by the end of this year.
The number of both Indian citizens visiting Kazakhstan and Kazakhs traveling to India is increasing steadily. Currently 2 flights are carried out by Air Astana on daily basis between Delhi and Almaty. And it is only 3 hours’ flight. We will have 4 flights a week to Mumbai from next year. We would be happy if any Indian airline companies can operate to our country, Spice Jet has evinced interest and Indigo also, so we hope to see more flights.
Since 2015 Kazakhstan is delighted to have appointed honorary consuls of Kazakhstan in the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. And two more consulates are expected to open in Kolkata and in Hyderabad in the near future. We are appointing Nawab Mir Nasir Ali Khan, MD, MAK Projects, as the Honorary Counsel General of our country at Hyderabad, said H.E. Mr Yerlan Alimbayev.
Regional director of “KazakhInvest”, Ms Aigul Nuralina presented investment climate in Kazakhstan. She said, Currently Kazakhstan has 14000 entries for foreign capital participation off which 500 are from India Companies. The investment flowing from Indian companies is on the rise. Kazakhstan extends incentives to investors interested in investing in the country and Indian countries are keen in availing these. The country provides certain preferences for investors and manufacturing products in Kazakhstan could be more viable and cost effective to market with in the country and neighboring Central Asian region, than importing from India. We provide incentives for starting business in 14 special economic zones and 22 industrial zones, established in the country. Investors also benefit from tax holiday up to 10 years, exemption of custom duties, subsidies on construction cost. As priority sectors, we are interested and keen to have Indian investors in Agriculture, food processing, mining, chemistry, petro-chemistry. To support foreign investors the government of Kazakhstan, established a Kazakh Invest National Company, two years ago, our Prime Minister is the Chairman of the company, so we can assure investors that your investment will be guaranteed and secure in the country. Kazakh Invest is interested in supporting you if you are interested in investing in Kazakhstan, the opportunities are in mining, in petrol and oil with heavy reserves. We help in finding a reliable Kazakh partner for companies. We extend complete support form initiation to post investment period of the project. According to World Bank Index Ranking on doing business, Kazakhstan is ranked 26 climbed in the recent results from 28.
It was mentioned that existing capacity for investment opportunities is very large and almost unlimited. “KazakhInvest” company will continue to make the most of every opportunity to raise the strategic partnership to an even higher level and to fill relations between Kazakhstan and India.
