Kazakhstan and China discuss construction of waterworks facilities at transborder rivers

Kazakhstan and China have discussed construction of waterworks facilities at transborder rivers. January 18 Astana hosted the 10th sitting of the Kazakh-Chinese Committee for Use and Protection of Transborder Rivers, according to the Kazakh Agriculture Ministry. The Committee approved a joint actions plan for 2013. Mid-December 2012 Tengrinews.kz reported, citing Vice Minister of Agriculture Marat Tolibayev, that Kazakhstan plans to settle the issue of transborder rivers with China by 2015. “Recently China has constructed Karamai Canal to divert water from the Black Irtysh River, which is a tributary of the Irtysh River. Water diverting is growing exponentially and we understand that procrastination [with regards to a possible agreement] is getting more dangerous for Kazakhstan and we are trying to secure an agreement in 2015 and to calculate our expenses from that moment on”, the Vice Minister said at that time while speaking before the Majilis (lower chamber). “China wants to divide transborder rivers with Kazakhstan “fairly”, which is depending on the number of people living along the rivers banks (…)if we divide the water depending on the number of people living in China and Kazakhstan, we [the Kazakh side] will never reach a win-win solution. So we turned down this particular argument of the Chinese side”, Mr. Tolibayev said at that time.