According to the government press service, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shahbaz Sharif, arrived in the capital of Kazakhstan on the afternoon of 3 July to participate in the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
"Kazakhstan and Pakistan are developing interaction within organisations, as well as bilateral trade, economic, transport, logistics and humanitarian cooperation. The IT industry and financial sector are also promising areas", the statement said.
Later, the President of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, landed at Astana airport. It has become known that over the last five years, trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Tajikistan has increased by 48.2% and amounted to $1.1 billion.
At the same time, the President of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, arrived to participate in the SCO summit. It is reported that Uzbekistan is one of Kazakhstan's largest trading partners. The volume of trade turnover between the two countries last year amounted to nearly $4.5 billion.
Moreover, in the first four months of this year, mutual trade reached $1.2 billion. It is noted that Uzbekistan accounts for approximately 57% of our republic's total trade turnover in Central Asia.
The President of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov, also arrived in the capital of Kazakhstan. Trade turnover between our countries from 2019 to 2023 increased by 67.3% and reached $1.5 billion.
Meanwhile, the plane of the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, landed in Astana. The Turkish leader will take part in the meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO member states.
It is reported that Turkey is a partner country of the organisation. It is among the top five largest trading partners of Kazakhstan and the top 20 investor countries. In just the first four months of this year, the volume of mutual trade between our countries reached $1.6 billion.
Since the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, was participating in events with high-ranking guests who had arrived earlier, the newly arrived summit participants were met at the airport by the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Olzhas Bektenov.
It is worth recalling that the SCO was founded in 2001 by six countries - Kazakhstan, China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran, India and Pakistan later joined the association. It is also expected that Belarus will become an SCO member at the summit in Astana.