Kazakhstan to apply for OECD membership

Kazakhstan will apply for a membership in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), Tengrinews.kz reports citing Kazakhstan Vice-PM Yerbol Orynbayev as saying at the Government meeting on August 27. “Four priority areas were selected based on the analysis of different directions and options in the framework of the Council for Interaction with the OECD and as part of the consultations with the OECD experts. These are education, investments, innovations (small and medium business) and agriculture. Considering this, we recommend joining four committees of the OECD on continuous basis: the Education Committee, Investment Committee, Industry, Innovations and Entrepreneurship Committee and Agricultural Committee. Kazakhstan should become a permanent observer in these committees,” Orynbayev said. After that it will become possible to consider the full membership in the Organization. Yerbol Orynbayev noted that there is no certain procedure of entering the OECD, as this is a closed club, but there is practice pattern which includes submission of application to enter the Organization, creation of a communications committee and a joining “roadmap”. The candidate country will receive an observer status after a positive decision is made by the club. A country willing to become a member of the OECD has to comply with certain standards set by the Organization and be a model for developed countries. “Considering the progressive and successful development of Kazakhstan, I think the moment has come to prepare for Kazakhstan's entering this Organization. As you know, Kazakhstan has been dynamically developing, the GDP has been growing, the crisis consequences have been overcome. Kazakhstan is currently one of the countries with medium income level ($9,000). The President has set a task to get Kazakhstan into the list of countries with high income ($15,000) by 2015,” Orynbayev said and added that membership in this club will facilitate implementation of best practices of developed countries and help enhance integration with these countries; through this the competitiveness of Kazakhstan's economy will increase. “Approved approaches for Kazakhstan entering the OECD,” Kazakhstan Prime-Minister Karim Massimov wrote in his Twitter on August 27.