By Ekaterina Tesemnikova, exclusively to VK
It has been three weeks since a new integration structure – the United Economic Space (UES) – began to operate in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The three governments try to ensure free exchange of goods, services and capitals through their borders. The UES in its turn is a step towards even broader integration project – the Eurasian Economic Union. The idea of such a union was proposed 18 years ago by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Today Astana evaluates economic implications of such a major integration project, namely new opportunities for medium-sized and small enterprises development.
With the prospects of such close integration at hand, Russia monitors administration reforms in Kazakhstan with keen interest. Last week a new parliament was formed in Kazakhstan with Nurlan Nigmatulin as its speaker and a new cabinet of ministers was appointed – Karim Maximov, however, retained his post of the Prime Minister. Keyrat Kelimbekov was appointed vice-PM, and according to a number of experts, this is the best move of Nazarbayev in the field of staff politics for the last few years.
The new vice-Premier is a relatively young person (he is 43 years old), his father was a renowned scholar, writer and interpreter Nemat Kelimbetov. Keyrat Kelimbekov is a highly educated person, at home with Russian as well as with Kazakh elite. He performed superbly during previous 10 years when he sequentially headed the Ministry of Economy and Budget Planning, the ‘Kazyna’ Foundation for Sustained Development, the Presidential Administration and the ‘Samuk-Kazyna’ Foundation for National Prosperity. After that he was the vice-minister of Economy and Budget Planning.
Kalimbetov has already made several notes on the prospects of the Eurasia Economic Union. According to him, if Russia and Kazakhstan would be able to overcome difficulties connected to the shaking of state monopolies on oil and gas trade, the business atmosphere in both states will become healthier and a great number of new opportunities will emerge.
Some experts expected that the young politician favored by the President will become the new PM, however, Nazarbayev kept Maximov as an experienced and well-trusted PM, who managed to achieve differentiation of Kazakh economy and develop non-raw material-related branches of production. Now the premier will have to work with a new cabinet- however, he is already acquainted with all new Ministers.
VK’s chief editor Alexei Vlasov, the new cabinet is capable of dealing not only with Kazakhstan’s interior matters, but with the new tasks that the process of Eurasian integration poses. “Nazarbayev again demonstrated his exceptional abilities in staff management”, the expert concluded.
As the MGIMO expert Leonid Gusev told VK correspondent, Karim Maximov is the optimal figure who showed himself a capable politician and administrator and has the support of Kazakh elite. As political expert Alexander Karavaev pointed out, for there are no serious reasons to change PM in Kazakhstan: “Experts are so focused on the post of Kazakh PM because thay think that the PM is a candidate for supreme power in the country, but it is too early to make such a conclusion now”.
