..Press Release................................ UNESCAP News Services

Date 21 May 2007
Press Release No. L/25/2007/CS63/19

Sixty-third session of ESCAP
Ministerial meeting

Almaty, Kazakhstan
21 May 2007

Statement
by H.E. Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev,
President of the Republic of Kazakhstan
at the Opening of the Ministerial Meeting
of 63rd Session of the United Nations
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

Almaty, 21 May 2007

Distinguished Executive Secretary of ESCAP!
Under-Secretaries General of the United Nations!
Distinguished delegates!
Ladies and Gentlemen!

I would like to whole-heartedly congratulate you on the opening of the Ministerial Meeting of the 63d Session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific.

Since its foundation ESCAP has been focusing its efforts at creating open and equal opportunities for cooperation of member-state in accelerating measures to eliminate social and economic inequality.  We can confidently state that over the past 60 years a lot has been accomplished to attain this goal.

Economic reforms gave the countries of the Asian and Pacific region a chance to become the principal engine of broad-scale economic development.  Economic growth of these countries in 2006 amounted to 8% - the highest growth rate in the world.
This economic growth should be translated into solving emerging social problems, effective implementation of the ESCAP social strategy in the context of globalisation.

Distinguished delegates,

Closely interconnected economic development in our countries coupled with the dynamic globalisation increases importance of promoting partnership and integration of the countries at both regional and sub-regional levels.
Economic growth per se, however, does not always solve existing problems, but quite often generates new ones. 

Often times booming economic growth leads to social stratification, increasing gaps in incomes of the rich and the poor, thus contributing to social degradation and creating grounds for emergence of new challenges and threats.

This vision of the problem is well known to all the countries having adopted the 2000 Millennium Declaration in and the 2005 UN Summit Final Document.  Peace and stability in the vast Asia-Pacific region is an important precondition for the sustainable economic growth.

Currently over 60% of the world population live in the Asia and Pacific countries, with their economies accounting to 28% of the global GDP.

But Asia and Pacific is not only a vital part of the global economy, not only a home for great civilisations and world religions.  Conflict potential at the Asian continent is as high as nowhere else in the world.

In this context, I would like to emphasise the important role played by the Association of South-Eastern Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in combating challenges and threats of the modern world.

The Conference on Interaction and Confidence-building Measures in Asia (CICMA) is a promising regional facility.  For the first time I suggested the CICMA initiative 15 years ago at the UN General Assembly and today it is working successfully.

CICMA brings together 18 states covering 90% of the territory of Asia inhabited by a half of the world’s population, plus 9 observers including countries and international institutions.  The two summits of the Conference conferred so far have demonstrated CICMA as an important security mechanism at the Asian continent.

I am confident that successful functioning of the Conference as an overall continental framework and a platform for interaction in the long run could be perceived as a basis for a future security organisation at the vast Asian space.  I do believe, that we here in Asia are able to resolve our problems by ourselves through meetings and dialogue.
In this context I should mention that Kazakhstan has applied for a membership in the ASEAN Regional Security Forum, which will open new prospects for the inter-regional co-operation and create conducive environment for further building of the “Eurasia Security Belt” encompassing ARF- CICMA-OSCE.

Today we have to strengthen confidence and to promote a dialogue between nations, cultures and regions.

Kazakhstan’s initiative of promoting a inter-religious dialogue also aims to strengthen peace.  Two Congresses of World and Traditional Religious Leaders were held in Astana in 2003 and 2006 attended by representatives of all large confessions in the world.  I think, it has been a landmark in convergence of civilisations.

Distinguished Participants of the meeting,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

During the years of independence our country has managed to create its own, Kazakhstani development path.  Owing to the economic, social and political reforms undertaken Kazakhstan has succeeded in increasing significantly the level and quality of living for its citizens.

Over the recent 7 years the country’s economy has been growing 10% a year on average.  High growth rates allow us to expect our GDP to double by 2008 and to triple by 2015 compared to 2000.  The GDP per capita in the current year is forecasted to amount to 6700 USD.  As a reminder, in 1994 we started with just 700 USD per capita.

As you can see, our country is developing dynamically.  We started after the disintegration of the Soviet Union as a part of a huge broken country, we overcame tremendous difficulties and crisis with the inflation surging over 2000% a year.  Therefore, it was only logical for us to target within the coming decade to join 50 the most competitive and dynamically developing countries of the world.

This is the objective of the Innovative Industrial Strategy focusing at economy diversification, manufacturing of high value-added goods and services, founding high-tech service economy.  A year ago the first Kazakhstani telecommunication satellite was launched from Baikonur.

Accession to the World Trade Organisation will also contribute to attainment of this goal.  Fair and non-discriminatory process is of a critical importance for us.

Kazakhstan has embarked on modernisation of the political system.  To this end, right during the period of this Session, the existing Constitution has been amended to enhance the mandate of representative bodies, to increase the number of their members and to strengthen the role of the Parliament.  As a matter of fact, Kazakhstan is transferring to a mixed, presidential and parliamentary form of governance.

We focus a lot at the healthcare with about 2 bln USD allocated for these purposes in 2006.

With respect to the gender policy, the 2006-2016 Gender Equality Strategy is currently being implemented aiming to ensure equal rights of men and women in all aspects of the life of the society.  Kazakhstan is very proactive in implementation of the Strategy.

Calculations show that our sub-continent looses about 45 bln USD in non-produced products due to the inequality of women.

In general Kazakhstan pursues the course towards consistent social modernization with the amount of pension benefits, other state allowances, like child allowance and allowances to mothers with many children, increasing.  Incomes of the population also grow.  We invest into the human development and primarily into education.  Annual allocations from the public budget to the social and human development have increased 3.5-fold compared to 2001 amounting to USD6.2 bln in 2007.  Looking forward, we are committed to continue to increase these spending. 

Distinguished participants of the meeting,

Kazakhstan has been honoured by the UNESCAP member-states having accepted our proposal to host the annual ESCAP session in Almaty in the jubilee year for the Commission.  This decision also evidences that ESCAP is prepared to turn its attention to Central Asia.
The increasing economic and political role of our region is driven by a number of factors.

Actively developing Central Asia is strategically important from the perspective of geopolitics and global energy market, security and stability in the significant part of Eurasia.  Rich natural endowment of Central Asia attracts intense interest on part of many countries.  The region is located at the junction of Eurasian transit corridors, is covered by extensive transport and communication network and represents an under-learned new market.

And this tremendous interest we should turn into the interest for the benefit to the development, and not into the confrontation field.  It should serve the best interest of the people of our region.

We fully appreciate that in the globalisation context no country in the world will be able to combat emerging challenges and threats and to address its economic problems alone.  That is why Kazakhstan suggested establishing the Union of Central Asian Countries.

Integration of Central Asian countries we perceive as an objective and natural process reasoned by national interests of each of the countries.  The countries of Central Asia are united by common history, cultural similarity, mutual economic complimentary, well developed transport infrastructure, common borders.

Staged implementation of this initiative envisages evolutionary transition from a free-trade zone with no exclusions or limitations to a customs union, unified economic space.

To the extent possible, today our country is rendering the economic and humanitarian assistance to other countries in the region.

Several years ago already Kazakhstan started to export capital, with the export of capital totalling to over 20 bln USD during the recent 2.5 years.  Our desire is to direct these resources to promote the growth and stability in the region.

Currently the Special programme for Afghanistan is being developed, including strengthening humanitarian and economic co-operation, investing into the national economy, training.  For example, Kazakhstan is planning to fund construction of a hospital and a school in the Bamian and Samanghan provinces and has already sent 4 000 tons of food-grade wheat to the country.
 
We welcome any economic projects implemented by international and development institutions in our region.

In this context Kazakhstan highly appreciates the role of UN ESCAP in implementation of the UN Special Program for Economies of Central Asia (SPECA), the 10th anniversary of the latter celebrated in the next year.

Delightful is to see SPECA cooperation enhancement receiving special focus on the agenda of the 63rd Session of the UN ESCAP and UN ESCAP Asian and Pacific Business Forum.

Specificity of the geographical positioning of these countries is that they are locked inside the continent.  Kazakhstan as the largest land-locked country in the world is interested in realisation of various transit transportation pipeline projects and stands ready to support them.

Special focus should be on the efficient implementation of the Almaty Action Programme for developing land-locked countries.  This document was an outcome of the First UN global conference on land-locked countries in August 2003.

With the view to further promote inter-regional co-operation between Central Asia and the ASEAN member-countries we believe it would be reasonable to establish a political and economic dialog ASEAN + Central Asia.

Kazakhstan as a transit country between Europe and Asia stands open for the broadest co-operation with our partners in the Asia and Pacific, which is demonstrated by the International Airport in the capital of Kazakhstan, the city of Astana, recently been transferred for the trust management to one of the leading companies in Asia and Pacific – the Malaysian “Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad” holding.

To conclude, I would like to underline that Central Asian countries inherited grave problems from their past, including aftermaths of nuclear explosions at the Semipalatinsk nuclear testing ground, the Aral Sea catastrophe.  As a result – high mortality rate, including high children mortality rate, shortage of safe potable water, other social problems.

That is why our country voluntarily denied nuclear arsenal, available in Kazakhstan at that point in time, and closed the world largest nuclear testing ground.

And recently the above problems have been augmented by the need to confront new challenges and threats such as international terrorism and extremism, drug-trafficking and illegal migration.  These issues also require constructive regional co-operation.

Alongside with that, realising their responsibility for the future of the region, in autumn 2006 Central Asian countries declared Central Asia as a region free of nuclear weapons.  As you all know, back in 1993-1994 Kazakhstan voluntarily denied nuclear weapons.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to specially underline that the issues discussed during today’s Session are of tremendous importance for countries of Central Asia.  I do believe, that the final document of the 63d UN ESCAP session will reflect the acute problems of our region.
I wish you successful work.

Thank you for your attention

* *** *
Headquartered in Bangkok, UNESCAP is the largest of the UN's five Regional Commissions in terms of its membership, population served and area covered. The only inter-governmental forum covering the entire Asia-Pacific region, UNESCAP aims to promote economic and social progress. More information on UNESCAP is available from www.unescap.org