President Nazarbayev speaks in favor of a common free trade zone in Central Asia

Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev has suggested Central Asia nations launch a common free trade zone, Newskaz.ru reports, citing President as saying at his March 2 meeting with all the ambassadors accredited in Kazakhstan. “Kazakhstan has been consistently promoting integration within Central Asia. All our neighbors do know that”, President said, adding that “nowadays it would be important to consider a common free trade zone in the region”, Head of State said. President is confident that the nations of Central Asia should jointly work on a single network of railways and motor roads, as well as on creating a single foodstuffs pool. “Central Asia enjoys a vast potential to be a global center. One of the future roles of the region is to develop oil and gas pipelines to export our resources both to Europe and Asia”, President said, emphasizing also that “holding huge uranium resources, Kazakhstan plans to develop peaceful nuclear power industry. It serves interests of the Kazakh nation and those of all the countries of the region”.