DUSHANBE, December 15, 2009, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan and Kazakhstan are expected to sign a number of cooperation agreements in the fields of sports and tourism in the first half-year of 2010, the source at the State Committee for Investments and State-owned Property Management (GosKomInvest), said.
According to him, the decision on this subject was adopted at the 7th session of the Tajik-Kazakh intergovernmental commission for trade and economic cooperation that took place in Astana, Kazakhstan last week.
The session also resulted in singing of a protocol. In all, 14 issues have been tabled to the session’s agenda. The session considered a broad range of issues related to bilateral cooperation between Tajikistan and Kazakhstan in sectors like agriculture, energy, transport and communications.
The session participants also considered the labor migration issues as after Russia, Kazakhstan is the second most favored destination for Tajik labor migrants. According to the Tajik Interior Ministry migration service, some 200,000 Tajik labor migrants are currently working in Kazakhstan.
The commission cochairmen – Tajik GosKomInvest head Davlatali Saidov and Kazakh Minister for Environmental Protection Nurgali Ashimov – charged relevant ministries and organizations of their countries to speed up singing of the tourism and sports cooperation agreements, the source said.
According to the State Committee for Statistics of Tajikistan, trade between Tajikistan and Kazakhstan in January-October 2009 has amounted to some 228.715 million U.S. dollars. This consisted of Tajikistan’s exports to Kazakhstan estimated at some US$12.83 million and Tajikistan’s imports from Kazakhstan worth US$215.885 million.
