Astana, June 3rd: Kazakhstan’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Marat Tazhin, visits the Hague today and tomorrow (June 3-4) for talks with the Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, Maxime Verhagen, as well as for talks with representatives from other Dutch ministries…

High on this week’s agenda are bilateral interaction between Kazakhstan and the Netherlands, Kazakhstan’s priorities for the forthcoming chairmanship of the OSCE (2010) and exchanges on key aspects of international policy.

The parties will pay special attention to the economic-environmental and humanitarian dimensions in the OSCE interaction process, and will focus also on the prevention of further crisis and emergency situations in the OSCE space.



POLITICAL COOPERATION

Diplomatic relations between Kazakhstan and the Netherlands were established in September 1992. The milestone first official visit of President Nursultan Nazarbayev to the Netherlands - on the invitation of Queen Beatrix - took place in November 2002.


TRADE & ECONOMIC COOPERATION

Foreign trade turnover between Kazakhstan and the Netherlands reached nearly $5 billion in 2008 (export - $4.6 billion / import - $0.3 billion) compared with approximately $2.8 billion in 2007 (export - $2.5 billion / import - $0.4 billion). Today, the Netherlands is the leading European investor into Kazakhstan’s economy. The total volume of investment from the Netherlands was $45.2 billion for the period 1993-2008. According to data from the National Bank of Kazakhstan, the total volume of investment by Kazakhstan into Netherlands reached $4.8 billion as of December 2008.


CULTURAL & HUMANITARIAN COOPERATION

Cooperation in the education field is deepening; contacts with the Universities in Groningen, Leiden, Utrecht and agricultural universities in Vaheningen are currently being strengthened. Today, twelve ’Bolashak’ scholars (recipients of the Kazakh government scholarship programme for foreign study) are students at the Technical University of Delft, at the Erasmus Rotterdam University, Amsterdam Business School and the Maastricht School of Management .The recent appointment of Kazakh musician Alan Buribayev as Principal Conductor of the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, and just a few weeks later, Chief Conductor of The Brabants Philharmonic Orchestra also evidences the ever-growing links between the countries.