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Kazakhstan is bracing itself for additional Western sanctions against Russia, Tengrinews reports.
The Central Asian country had to do so because Russia is its northern neighbor with their shared border stretching to almost 7,000 kilometres. Russia is Kazakhstan’s main trade partner (their mutual trade was worth $23.5 billion last year), and their relationships can become even closer with the Eurasian Economic Union coming into being next year.
Such geographical and economic proximity make it likely that Kazakhstan will experience some side-effects from the Western sanctions against Russia.
Today’s expanded government meeting had economic situation high on the agenda. The President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev stressed that he had gathered all the members of the Cabinet in order to summarize the results accomplished in the current year and set plans to keep the economy running and prevent a decline in the remaining part of the year.
The Minister of Economy and Budget Planning Yerbolat Dossayev declared that Kazakhstan is prepared to face a situation of toughening Western sanctions against Russia.
“Given the growing risks in the global economy, the ministry is monitoring the global and domestic economic dynamics on a regular basis and evaluating their impact on our economy. Together with the government agencies we have developed anti-crisis plans for various economic scenarios. Besides, following your instructions, we have developed a separate action plan against the possibility of more sanctions being applied against Russia and deterioration of the situation in Ukraine. The plan will be actualized in September 2014,” Dossayev said.
President Nazarbayev stressed that leaders on every level - from provinces to the center - have to pay close attention to the way economic situation unfolds. "We have our goals set, and we have the funding. Further economic policies of the government should be focused on achieving our goals amid the existing risks. Therefore, we must first of all analyse the existing economic policies and develop new responses suitable for the changing environment,” Nursultan Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan, said addressing the extended government meeting.
Reporting by Assemgul Kassenova, writing by Dinara Urazova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina
