Does Kazakhstan Need Central Asia?
Business and Economics, Kazakhstan2 Comments
Translation of megakhuimyak’s post (RUS)
Let’s look at the commodity turnover.
Kazakhstan remains one of Kyrgyzstan’s leading trade partners. The volume of bilateral trade for 2009 was $507.0 million (Export: 390.5, Import: 116.5), which, due to the financial crisis, is 16.7% lower than it was in 2008.
The volume of Kazakhstan’s bilateral trade with Tajikistan is second only to Russia’s in the CIS. For 2009, the commodity turnover between the two countries was $255.1 million (Export: 240.3, Import: 14.8), 8% lower than in 2008 (277.2).
The volume of Kazakhstan’s trade with Turkmenistan for 2009 was $170.3 million (Export: 108.9, Import: 61.4), 2.5 times lower than in 2008.
Bilateral trade with Uzbekistan totalled $1.196 billion (Export: 891.8 million, Import: 304.4 million), 33.1$ lower than in 2008.
By comparison, the volume of trade with Russia in 2009 was $12.4 billion.
Does Kazakhstan have strategic interests (e.g. trade routes) in Central Asia? No.
Do Kazakh citizens work elsewhere in Central Asia? No, the opposite is true. Citizens of other Central Asian republics come to work in Kazakhstan, some illegally.
Does Kazakhstan have large investments there? No, the country invests three times more in Romania than in the whole region.
Overall, it turns out, Central Asia is just a source of risk and problems for Kazakhstan.
Should we form a union with them? No.
Should we properly secure our borders? Yes.
RSS Feeds
Podcasts
[...] Megakhuimyak analyzes statistics and comes to a conclusion that Kazakhstan does not have strategic trade or investment interests in Central Asia, while the region itself turns out to be a source of risk and problems for Kazakhstan. [...]
If Kazakhstan were a purely economic entity, then perhaps you would be right. By the same logic, Europe and the US also have no need for Kazakhstan because our trade turnover is also very small. Almost all Kazakhstan oil and gas, the only strategic interest, goes through Russia anyway. So Kazakhstan and Russia would be left alone–or perhaps Russia also adopting this logic will trade more with the Ukraine and the EU. Then that $1 billion trade with Uzbekistan would not look so small.
Reply