During the Kazakh trade mission to the Chinese city of Xi'an, the parties signed export contracts for the supply of dried camel milk, drinks, egg noodles, and cattle meat to China worth about $100 million, as well as four memorandums on further trade cooperation, QazMonitor reports citing the ministry of trade and integration.
Over 40 Kazakh food manufacturers took part in the business event held in Xi'an from May 15-17, including companies producing fat and meat products, pasta and confectionery products, honey, alcohol products, bran, juices, and others.
The Chinese side was represented by more than 800 entrepreneurs, as well as representatives of the Xi'an Sub-Council of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Xi'an Municipal People's Congress, the Foreign Affairs Office of Shanxi Province, and the Foreign Affairs Office in Xi'an.
Kairat Torebayev, the vice minister of trade and integration, said in his welcoming speech that the mutual trade between Kazakhstan and China reached a record high, exceeding $24 billion last year. This figure includes the export of Kazakh products to China, which grew by more than a third and amounted to $13.2 billion, while the demand for Chinese goods in Kazakhstan grew by 33.5% and amounted to $11.0 billion.
This positive trend has continued this year, with trade turnover between Kazakhstan and China amounting to $5.9 billion in January-March 2023. This represents a 28.1% y/y increase from $4.6 billion.
"Kazakh companies are ready to offer Chinese consumers a wide range of industrial and agricultural products with 135 additional product lines worth over $1 billion,” noted Torebayev.
During the trade mission, the national export insurance company KazakhExport and Wuhan Asia-Europe Logistics signed a memorandum of cooperation to jointly organize events to promote Kazakh products in the Chinese market. The signed document defines the framework within which the Chinese company will import and sell Kazakh products through the trading networks of Hubei province and the rest of China.