President Nursultan Nazarbayev met the participants of the Caspian Energy Hub Project. Chairman of the Board of the Gulf Finance House Esam Y. Janahi and Chairman and CEO of PFC Energy International Vahan Zanoyan updated the President on the project’s features. The Caspian Energy Hub is going to be established in Aktau on the Caspian Sea coast. The project’s goal is to participate in the development of human resources in Kazakhstan and its economy by means of establishing a center of oil and gas industries in the Caspian region. It is planned to establish a large center for training technical personnel and hiring staff for oil companies, which will include science and technology parks, laboratories of geophysical data, centers of information technologies, centers for environmental studies and renewable energy sources. “President has approved this project. Our Kazakh partners will be Kazyna Fund for Sustainable Development, Samruk State Holding and Mangistau region’s office of governor,” Zanoyan said at the press briefing. The Board Chairman of Gulf Finance House said that the companies had implemented such projects in Qatar, India and Lebanon. “The Kazakh project is going to be implemented in 3-5 years. The total amount of investments will be equal to 10 billion dollars,” Esam Y. Janahi noted.

ASTANA, April 11 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan will not use oil revenues stashed in a special rainy day fund to combat liquidity problems, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said. In remarks posted on the presidential Web site late on Thursday, he said Central Asia's top economy had enough leeway to refill state coffers through other methods such as imposing oil export duties and suspending marginal construction projects. "Social conditions will not get worse. The government has introduced an oil export duty...We can also suspend construction of a number of sites other than housing, healthcare and education facilities and innovative projects," he said. "This way we can overcome the effects of the global financial crisis without touching the national fund." The stabilisation fund contained $23 billion in windfall oil revenues as of early April. Credited by many Kazakhs for seven years of uninterrupted economic growth, Nazarbayev is facing a tough task of weathering the global credit crisis which has hit its emerging financial industry hard since mid-2007. Nazarbayev last year ordered the government to earmark a total of $4 billion in state funds to support economic stability, of which $1 billion has been used so far. Another $1 billion in budget revenue is due to come from a new oil export duty, expected to come into effect in May. Economic growth, which averaged about 10 percent since 2000 on the back of booming global oil and metals prices, was 8.5 percent last year and is seen at 5-7 percent in 2008. In his remarks, Nazarbayev urged officials against obsessing over high growth numbers, saying Kazakhstan's priority was to fight inflation. Annual inflation jumped to 18.8 percent in 2007 from 8.4 percent a year earlier. "The government's main goal for the next year or two is to keep inflation at bay," the presidential press service quoted him as saying. "We should not fixate ourselves on the pace of economic growth." (Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Jan Dahinten).

“Kazakhstan attaches great importance to steady expansion of mutually beneficial cooperation and strategic partnership with China”, said Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Karim Massimov when speaking at the opening of “Kazakhstan-China: Partnership for Success” Kazakh-Chinese business forum in Beijing. Head of the Kazakhstan’s Government noted that the current Kazakh-Chinese relations rely mainly on trade-and-economic cooperation. Bilateral trade turnover has grown manifold within a short period to reach USD 13.8 billion in 2007. This suggests that the figure could exceed USD 15 billion as early as by 2010. Energy sector is one of the major realms of cooperation. The two nations have successfully launched Atasu-Alashankow oil pipeline and are now constructing a second stage, namely Kumkol-Atasu section; work is under way to construct the Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline; efforts are being taken to expand cooperation in peaceful nuclear industry. Besides, the Chinese side has expressed interest in constructing Moinak hydroelectric power station and Balkash thermal power plant. “Today we have entered a new stage of business cooperation – the stage of implementation of large-scaled non-extraction projects”, K. Massimov said, adding that this year the sides will complete creation of Khorgos International Center for Transfrontier Cooperation. Connection of railway networks of the two nations at Khorgos border crossing planned for 2009 will be of great importance to the Center’s work. For the time being, work is under way to create a free trade zone at Dostyk-Alashankow railway border crossing and to launch the 8500-km West Europe – West China transcontinental motor transport corridor, 2800 km of which will run across Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan’s PM noted that the two nations have intensified cooperation in finance, notably in large project financing, export credit insurance, involvement of second tier banks into development of the two countries’ financial markets, including through opening of subsidiaries. He announced that the draft plan of non-extraction cooperation initiatives to be signed by the sides comprises over 40 projects which could be of interest both to large companies and mid-size businesses. K. Massimov invited Chinese business community to participate in implementation of the projects, adding that Kazakhstan welcomes foreign investments into manufacturing and processing industries, as well as in technology-intensive sectors, where all the favoring conditions have been put in place for foreign investors. Kazakhstan as an emerging nation most fully integrated into the global economy has become known for its favoring investment climate and deserved a reputation of a reliable partner. Through successful implementation of the 2030 Development Strategy, Kazakhstan has attracted USD 70 billion of FDI, which is 80% of the investments accommodated by the entire Central Asia. The country has passed a number of laws to ensure protection