Located between Russia and China, Kazakhstan, with its nearly 3 million square km, represents the ninth largest country by total area. The territorial vastness, together with the strategic position, contributes to make the country an actor of great interest within the Asian macro-region, as well as the leading economy of the Central Asia area.
Since the acquisition of the independence in 1991, the economic development of Kazakhstan has been mainly driven by the oil and gas sector, together with the goods and services related to the mining industry. In particular, the latter highly relies on the abundant wealth of natural reserves of oil and gas present in the territory of Kazakh. This has always been the major source of attraction for the investments by the big multinationals. However, the local government is well aware of the need to diversify its own economy with the scope of supporting the economic growth of the country.
As regard the territory, Kazakhstan is one of the landlocked countries. However, the transport infrastructural system appears quite diversified ranging from transport on road, railway, air and gas pipeline. The efficiency of such system, as well as the strengths mentioned before, makes Kazakhstan a focal point within the New Silk Road. In particular, the China-Europe railway involves Kazakhstan as a crucial hub in the commercial exchanges between China and Europe. Most trains, in fact, transit through Khorgos, a dry port inaugurated in 2015 through which converge two of the six economic corridors of the Belt and Road Initiative.
It is noteworthy that recent initiatives adopted by the Kazakh government are mainly aimed at reducing the dependency of Kazakhstan on energy sector, consequently launching a strategic plan that focuses on the economy diversification. In this vein, the so called “National Development Plan Through 2025” outlines a number of medium-long term priorities that would drive the country towards new economic sectors, in which also international partner could seize interesting opportunities for cooperation with Kazakh operators.
Within the strategy of economic diversification, sectors as green economy and renewable energy, agribusiness, industrialization and machinery have been identified as the potential sectors of economy diversification in Kazakhstan. As emerged from the last business forum Italy-Kazakhstan, organized by Confindustria, these sectors provide for a strong involvement of Italy as a partner who would support and complete the economic breakthrough of Kazakhstan through its cutting-edge technology.
In particular, a positive impact for the Italian export involves the agricultural and agro-industrial profiles. The strong agricultural vocation of Kazakhstan is recently of great interest due to the growth trend that the country is currently experiencing, both in terms of cultivated land and modernization of production systems. The positive results are confirmed by the data related to 2020 that registered a +5.6% in the agricultural production, for a total of 12 billion, and an increase of 15% in the investments field.
This undoubtedly favors the interest of local operators in the Italian know-how and technologies. In fact, Italy represents the third commercial partner of Kazakhstan at a global level and the first among the EU countries. Machinery, both for general and special usage, represents the 50% of the Made in Italy export to Kazakhstan, which exceeded the value of 1 billion Euro during the period preceding the pandemic. Following this positive trend, the machinery sector, framed within the agricultural growth of Kazakhstan, would suggest the possibility of strategic partnership between the two countries.
In this regard, several partnerships have already been initiated between Kazakh and Italian companies, in the framework of a successful combination between machinery and agricultural sectors. These collaborations mainly arise from the choice of Kazakh companies to employ Italian cutting-edge technology for the launch of the 4.0 agriculture within the Kazakh territory. Specifically, Italian agricultural machinery, production and cultivation systems, as well as equipment are employed with the aim of driving the agricultural development of Kazakhstan towards an innovation and digitalization signed Made in Italy.
Asia Desk – Studio Legale Zunarelli
