Croatia expects Nazarbayev to visit

Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev is expected to make an official visit to Croatia in the end of 2013, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Croatia’s First Deputy Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Josko Klisovic as saying at Kazakhstan-Croatian Business Forum. “We had a meeting with Kazakhstan’s Deputy Foreign Minister and Vice-Minister of Economy. During the discussions I reiterated Croatia’s willingness to create a joint commission for promotion of economic relations. We plan this commission to start working as soon as possible to help in cooperation between Kazakhstan and Croatia. All these measures will help prepare the ground for the official visit of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev,” Klisovic said. According to him, the visit of Kazakhstan President “will help a lot” in promotion of the bilateral partnership, especially in its economic aspects. “Our countries are of the same age. In 2011 we also celebrated the 20th anniversary of our independence. We built our countries and achieved good results during this period. We view Kazakhstan as an outstanding partner and believe that our countries can cooperate in many areas. Compared to 2011, we have doubled the trade turnovers, but these numbers are still low and we have to take efforts to improve them,” Klisovic said. According to him, the countries are now agreeing on a range of the bilateral documents to avoid double taxation. Besides, Kazakhstan and Croatia are considering regulatory documents in aviation and tourism. “Many of our companies working in different industries have expressed interest in the Kazakhstan market. They want to work in agriculture, pharmaceutics, ship-building and engineering. We are also ready to take part in preparation for the EXPO-2017,” the Croatian official said. By Baubek Konyrov