Kazakhstan

China is a major investor

The Republic of Kazakhstan is a key Central Asian country for China.
China is the closest neighbor and largest trading partner. Over 30 years of Kazakhstan-China relations have gone a long way from cross-border trade to a strategic partnership between the countries. China ranks the fourth place ($21,3 billion),after the Netherlands, the United States and Switzerland, in terms of foreign direct investments in Kazakhstan's economy (*).As of October 2022, the nationwide pool of investment projects included 32 projects in various sectors of the country's economy, which were implemented with the financial support of China(*). The volume of bilateral trade amounted to $18,2 billion in 2021. Kazakhstan exported $9,9 billion worth of mineral products, metals and chemical products to China, while China imported $8,3 billion worth of machinery, equipment, vehicles, instruments and apparatus, chemical and related products, metals and metal products from China(*).

One Belt - One Road

A new stage in the development of bilateral relations was the country's participation in China's «Belt and Road Initiative», which was first announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazakhstan in the fall of 2013(*) .Under the agreement on cooperation in the field of industrialization and investment (2015), 52 joint Kazakh-Chinese projects worth $21.1 billion have being implemented in Kazakhstan in such sectors as metallurgy, oil and gas processing, chemical industry, mechanical engineering, electric power industry, transport, construction materials, healthcare and agriculture. From 2015 to July 2022, 20 projects worth $4.453 billion have been launched, 15 projects worth $5.326 billion are underway, and 17 projects are under review (*) .

Environmental Impact

However, the implementation of the program has generated a lot of rumors and speculations in the country due to the lack of detailed information from the official bodies of Kazakhstan and China. This also applies to the issues of the program's impact on the environment and environmental rights of the population of Kazakhstan.
This section is an attempt to highlight the environmental aspects of the projects of this program.