The head of state pointed out that the World Economic Forum was a platform for exchange of opinions on the state of affairs in the world economy and prospects for its development.
“The Davos Forum is a venue for numerous meetings as it gathers together a great number of heads of states and governments, heads of international organisations and leading companies. “Since Kazakhstan gained independence, I used to visit this forum many times because our country was not so famous at that moment. The goal of those visits was to tell and attract attentions of investors to a young republic. I would like to remind that exactly at that time formation of the Foreign Investors’ Council was initiated. Today, with regard to adoption of the Strategy-2050 and its goal to enter top 30 world’s developed countries there is a need to tell participants of the forum about this strategy”, the President of Kazakhstan said.
Nursultan Nazarbayev told about the meetings with President of the forum Klaus Schwab, heads of other states and governments.
The President of Kazakhstan also briefed on his conversation with CEO of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Suma Chakrabarti.
“The EBRD invested in Kazakhstan US$ 6.5 billion. At the meeting, I asked to pay more attention to support and development of small and medium businesses. The bank has already assisted in financing the projects amounted to US $162 million. This year the Bank has channeled US$ 77 million in loans to businesses this year,” Nursultan Nazarbayev highlighted.
Besides, the President of Kazakhstan noted that one of the topics of the meeting was attraction of investments for hosting the “EXPO-2017” international exhibition in Astana.
The head of state stressed that the forum was a good opportunity to welcome old partners and meet new ones.
Moreover, the President of Kazakhstan informed that the forum defined a range of serious challenges and future crises.
“In this regard, there is no euphoria on that the crisis is over. Hardships are still ahead. The main problem in the European Union is unemployment, especially among young people, as well as skeptical attitude to the Eurocurrency. The elections to the European Parliament scheduled for the middle of the year will be very serious. The economies of European countries and the USA are gradually rising, which is good news. At the same time, China’s economic growth rate lowering is being observed, which is, in turn, poses an alarming signal. The state of economy in Russia is important as well. All of these issues trouble us, as we are part of the world community and all the changes we are facing worldwide affect us. Our task is to take them into account and take appropriate measures in order to go out of such possible difficult situations,” Nursultan Nazarbayev concluded.