| VISIT OF PRESIDENT OF UZBEKISTAN ISLOM KARIMOV TO KAZAKHSTAN 
GULNUR RAKHMATULINA,
Senior research fellow of the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty On April 22-23, 2008 President of Uzbekistan Islom Karimov was on an official visit to Kazakhstan, which is of great importance to the development of the mutually beneficial cooperation of the two countries.
During the visit of Karimov to Astana the two Presidents discussed the important issues of expansion of the trade and economic relations between the countries. I want to stress that following 2007 the trade volume between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan amounts to 1.5 billion U.S. dollars. This is an unimplemented potential of the economic cooperation between the two countries. So, the Presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan emphasized that there was a need to remove customs and frontier barriers impeding the trade development. The important thing is that the Presidents have decided to create an effective free trade zone and to form a working group. Moreover, they examined the issue of increasing the number of the check points on the border and of introducing the “two borders – one stop” principle, which will favor the effective development of the Kazakh-Uzbek trade and economic relations.
The political leaders also touched upon the issues of the energy cooperation between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Those countries are very interested in the efficient use of their transit potential and in the increase of the hydrocarbon resources export to the world markets. In particular, now the Kazakh and Uzbek energy agencies are working on the projects to increase throughput capacity of the Central Asia – Center gas pipeline up to 100 billion cubic meters a year.
Apart from that, Kazakhstan is interested in the increase of the Uzbek gas import through the Buxoro-Tashkent-Bishkek-Almaty gas pipeline and in the energy deficit reduction in the south of the republic. The two countries have reached the agreement about the 20% increase of the Uzbek gas supplies to Kazakhstan’s domestic market in 2008.
In its turn Uzbekistan would like the gas to be exported to China. It can be supplied via Kazakhstan through the Western Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline. As is known, at present Kazakhstan is implementing the project of this pipeline construction.
This way, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have common interests in the energy field. The development of the mutually beneficial relations between the countries in the fuel and energy branches will be an important factor of their stable growth and the strengthening of the economic security.
Another important result of the visit is the formation of the common Kazakh and Uzbek position on the efficient use of the water and energy resources in the Central Asian region. Unfortunately, the Central Asian countries have not come to terms yet about the use of the hydropower potential. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are interested in hydropower production growth, and this adversely affects the satisfaction of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan’s water requirements in the vegetation period. The drying up of the Aral Sea, land degradation, biodiversity reduction and glaciers thawing in the Pamirs and the Tien Shan resulted from the fact that the Central Asian countries have attained no agreement about pursuing their water resources policy.
That’s why the Kazakh and Uzbek Presidents believe that the Central Asian countries must observe the international laws when using their across-the-border waters and that it is necessary to establish the International Water Hydropower Consortium making it possible to work out a perfect mechanism of the integration cooperation among the countries in the water economy sphere.
In the course of Karimov’s visit no new documents on the bilateral cooperation were adopted. The Presidents emphasized the necessity of fulfilling the treaties and agreements concluded more carefully (the Strategy of the Economic Cooperation between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for 2007-2016, the Program of the Economic Cooperation between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for 2006-2010 and others) and of monitoring the circulation of documents.
Islom Karimov and Nursultan Nazarbayev also discussed Kazakhstan’s initiatives to create the Union of the Central Asian Countries. The Uzbek leader said that he could not accept that idea since the Central Asian countries were not ready for the integration because of the different levels of their economic development and market reforms.
However, the decisions taken during the visit on the formation of the effective free trade zone between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan will be of importance to the closer integration of our countries and to the creation of the economic Central Asian Union over the long term.
The visit of Uzbek President Islom Karimov to Kazakhstan will favor the closer economic cooperation between the two countries, the strengthening of the states’ key role in making the Central Asian region more secure, the Central Asian countries’ following the concerted policy in the use of the hydropower resources and, as a result, the normalization of the region’s environment and the well-being of the local population.
May 6, 2008
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