President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev (Photo: AFP/Uzbekistan Presidency)
Eurasia
05/04/2025 12:41
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev presented his vision of the prospective agenda of cooperation between Central Asia and the European Union.
He prioritized strengthening trade and economic ties and affirmed the country’s readiness to boost exports to the EU on 175 items worth over 2 billion US dollars. Tokayev called on European companies to use the AIFC platform to fund such projects.
Tokayev also addressed the Samarkand Climate Conference and emphasized the urgent need for coordinated action among Central Asian countries in response to accelerating climate change. Central Asia is highly susceptible to climate change, where the temperature is rising twice as fast as the global average. The region, Tokayev noted, suffers from extreme weather threats such as glacier melt, desertification, and water scarcity.
Earlier, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev held meetings with European Council President António Costa, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Odile Renaud-Basso.
As a great start of the new chapter of cooperation, the European Union has launched a package of 12 billion euros for Central Asian region under its Global Gateway investment program, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced at the press statement following the Central Asia-EU Summit.
This package has four priorities. With the aim to bring the regions closer, the EU prioritized the flagship project – the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, where it invested 10 billion euros (US$11 billion). The second element is climate, energy, and water. The EU is building dams to support the region’s water and energy security, and is also creating a new green belt in the Aral Sea basin “for the desert to bloom with life again.” The third priority is digital. The EU partners with Central Asia to bring the Internet to the most remote areas, schools, and hospitals of the region via its satellites. “This year alone, we are connecting 2,000 schools and hundreds of villages in Kazakhstan to European satellites. Then we are extending to 1,700 villages across the region in the coming years,” von der Leyen said. The fourth element is critical raw materials, which is needed to power the clean transition and the clean economy of tomorrow. The EU has already signed Memoranda of Understanding on critical minerals with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and brought this cooperation to a new level by endorsing a Joint Declaration of Intent on Critical Raw Materials.