00:04For a long time, Kazakhstan has been using its geographic position to become a regional transit hub.
00:10How can the country now move from transit to generating its own value?
00:15How can it attract companies to set their production here?
00:18These highlights of the Astana Finance Day discussion answer these questions.
00:27Now, Kazakhstan has traditionally been seen as that transit country, which is clear.
00:32And from your perspective as a private infrastructure investor, what needs to change for Kazakhstan to capture more value from
00:40the trade flows passing through the country?
00:43My personal opinion is that it is through efficient logistics and good access to the markets.
00:50And in case if we can make this logistics efficient and transparent and competitive, then a lot of projects in
00:57Central Asia will unlock.
00:58Because we have relatively cheap labor, very competent and high-skilled labor.
01:02We have less relatively cheap resources.
01:05We have relatively cheap construction costs.
01:08But we have the only one drawback is because of our landlocked, we have expensive logistics.
01:13Now, a lot of transit cargo is coming, so it gives us opportunity to make investment into the infrastructure and
01:21multimodal transportation, attract international shipping lines.
01:24Increasingly, we're talking about a network rather than an individual route.
01:28What role can airports play in the development of Kazakhstan's international transport and logistics corridors?
01:33Traditionally, the sea transportation was the cheapest, but aviation has a very big ambition to make with a multimodal even
01:44more cheaper.
01:46So we, just last year, we started the multimodal transportation from China to Europe.
01:53And we see that from Shenzhen, we received the trucks with the electronic econ goods only in six days.
02:05And then in one day, it goes to Europe.
02:08So we can integrate time and economic.
02:12And in the future, I believe that the Aktau Airport with the rail, highway and seaway and aviation will be
02:19the greatest point for not only transit.
02:23Alima, we'll move from the infrastructure to what happens when an international company actually decides to put down its roots
02:31here.
02:32Why is Kazakhstan becoming an increasingly important manufacturing and investment hub?
02:38Publicly available number says that from 2021, let's say, the production increased from 2.3 trillion Kazakhstan in Tengya to
02:493.9, almost 4 trillion Tengya in 2025.
02:53While the export volumes increased from 400 million to more than 1 billion USD in 2024.
03:03So we see that it's not just, you know, transit.
03:07It's because internally, the production investment manufacturing is increasing.
03:13So creating the environment for local manufacturing and working on the logistic infrastructure gives a great opportunity for the country,
03:25for Kazakhstan, you know, to continue being not just a transit hub, but real regional hub for production and for
03:32the transportation.
03:33What are the countries' main competitive economic advantages within this Central Asian region?
03:39First of all, we are, again, we're the most stable country in terms of the attraction of the FDI.
03:45I just want to say that for the last, I think, 12, 13 years, Kazakhstan attracted more than 260 billion
03:52US dollars, which is more than all Central Asian countries altogether.
03:57Second one is what Nuzhan also mentioned.
04:00This is about the natural resources that we have in our country.
04:02We're the richest country in terms of the natural resources.
04:05If you had to name the single instrument whose absence most limits a Kazakh firm's ability to trade across this
04:12region, which would it be and what would it take to supply it?
04:17There is one thing that's missing, and that is, I think, the currency hedging instruments, which we're mentioning.
04:24But they're not the most important part.
04:26I think the most important part is then the discounting, where when you have that project, when you have that
04:33invoice and it's all confirmed, then you have to go to your local bank has to believe that this is
04:40risk-free or that this is low in risk.
04:42Predictability is very, very important in this finance transaction because it lowers the cost.
04:47These were the highlights of the discussion.
04:49Listen to other debates on important strategic issues worldwide on Euronews and Euronews.com.
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