The Russia Today press center held a panel entitled "Modernization in Kazakh style: priorities of 2018" in Moscow, at which experts discussed key provisions of President Nursultan Nazarbayev's recent address to the people of Kazakhstan entitled "New development opportunities in the conditions of the fourth industrial revolution".
According to the director of the Institute of International Studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Andrey Kazantsev, terrorist threats, threats related to the conflicts between the regional powers, the Middle East conflict, the situation in Afghanistan has a negative impact on the Central Asian region. "Kazakhstan's foreign policy aimed at creating peace, developing mutually beneficial economic cooperation between all the states of the post-Soviet space, Central Asia, the whole of Eurasia and the world as a whole, has become an important factor that promotes stability in the region surrounding Kazakhstan. Now we should discuss Kazakhstan's further economic development plans."
According to Andrei Kazantsev, foreign policy successes are reflected in the economy, in particular in the field of investment: "Kazakhstan's good relations with the whole world, its ability to build foreign policy, promoting the idea of peace and economic cooperation in both our region and throughout the world, led to the fact that Kazakhstan has become the leader of the post-Soviet space in investment per capita. This effective investment model allows us to look optimistically at many of the plans put forward by the President. Because fitting into the global economy taking into account the processes of globalization, which are now being modified, is impossible without an effective investment model."
Adviser to the President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, Georgy Petrov, drew attention to the fact that the Kazakh President's address preceded the address of the Russian President: "Many provisions that can be extracted from Nursultan Abishevich's address are in tune with Russia, in particular industrialization. The global economy trend showed that postindustrial society is beginning to get rid of itself. It caused even more challenges and contradictions, increased the gap between the poor and the rich, created bifurcation points that can become serious conflicts. If we look at the figures, Kazakhstan overcame the negative global economic tendencies, and the structures of our economies are very similar. "
The expert also drew attention to the fact that the agenda of the Davos forum,held two weeks after Nazarbayev's address, was largely identical to the formulation of the tasks set by President Nazarbayev for his people.
Georgy Petrov also saw a positive in the address for further strengthening of cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan in a multilateral format, first of all the Eurasian Economic Union, as well as in the bilateral one, in the development of trade and investment. "I do not know of any other country (except Kazakhstan) from the near or far abroad, with more than 8000 Russian enterprises and enterprises with Russian participation. And when the positive changes have started both in Kazakhstan's economy and in Russia's economy, the number of these enterprises increased by almost 1500. This is a record number. We managed to overcome the negative trend in the development of bilateral trade. The record year was 2012, when the trade turnover reached $25 billion. Then there was a gradual decrease in mutual trade due to domestic economic causes and other things. And in 2017, we see an increase. In the 11 months of last year, mutual trade reached the level of 15 billion. There were 13 billion for the whole 2016. It can be expected that after summing up the results of 2017 there will be 17-18 billion. We are optimistic about the coming year, as the new Customs Code of the Eurasian Economic Union comes into force, and it is appropriate to recall here that the president of Kazakhstan was the father of the Eurasian economic integration."
The vice-rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) Andrey Margolin recalled how Nazarbayev defended his doctoral dissertation in 1992: "Many things that concern resource saving, ecology, investing in human capital development were reflected in the doctoral dissertation of the president. This work has not lost its urgency".
Andrei Margolin, as a representative of the education sector, focused on the development of human capital: "If we take a section on the development of the agro-industrial complex, the president says that smart irrigation technology systems are needed, intelligent fertilizer systems, agrarian universities should be improved. A section about information technologies, says that new approaches to the training of personnel are needed. People who own the future should be aware of what is called the industrial revolution 4.0, the block chain, they must understand what a virtual and augmented reality is. "
Margolin stressed that Nazarbayev devotes a lot of time to the development of integration processes: "Our academy recently signed a cooperation agreement at the Gaidar Forum with the regional hub of the civil service in Astana. We work very closely with the Academy of Management under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, we communicate at various venues - both in Moscow and Astana, and recently in Tashkent, That is, our cooperation is informal, has a result of joint publications, conferences. We are close to the implementation of joint educational programs."
