The turnover of goods between Armenia and Kazakhstan is quite low: as to the results of last year, it constituted only $5.5 million.  

The Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Armenia, Timur Urazaev, told the aforementioned to Armenian News – NEWS.am.

According to him, there is unfortunately a great unused potential in the bilateral trade relation between the two countries. “As to the trade relations, unfortunately, there is a great unused potential here, even given the quite objectively existing difficulties, which are first of all of transportation and logistical nature. Both the Kazakh and Armenian colleagues keep this topic among the priority issues,” Timur Urazaev said.

In the Ambassador’s words, most of the turnover is covered by the export of Armenian products through the efforts of the businessmen.  “As a rule, these are the citizens of Armenian nationality. From the perspective of small and medium-sized business, we do not yet have an opportunity to compete with the Russian exporters,” he noted.

The diplomat doesn't think that the investment conditions in Armenia are worse than in Georgia. “I think the investment opportunities may even be better [here]. The wonderful GSP+ trade regime between Armenia and the European Union is used, which gives a unique opportunity not only for Kazakh but also any international partners of Armenia to invest in the territory of the country very successfully,” he added.

During January-October of the year 2016, the turnover of goods between Armenia and Kazakhstan already grew by 55.4 percent. “I think the finding of new nomenclature of goods, which should be in demand, can first of all serve as a point of trade growth between Kazakhstan and Armenia. The export of Armenian goods—wine and brandy production and jewelry—covers 98 percent of turnover of goods between Kazakhstan and Armenia, whereas the Kazakhstan export in January-February of the year 2016 constituted only nearly $294,000. How can we improve the situation? We should first of all think of improving the capacities of the northern route from Armenia to the territory of Kazakhstan via Georgia and Russia, considering the seasonality of Upper Lars. Parallel with this it is also necessary to develop the southern route to Kazakhstan via the territory of Iran and Turkmenistan,” Timur Urazaev concluded.