Kazakhstan looks for enhanced EU links
The minister stated that the visit was significant and showed the importance of EU-Kazakhstan relations to the Central Asian state, the New Europe reports.
Highlighting the 20th anniversary of their independence, Kazykhanov said that, since the 1990s, when GDP per capita was a lowly $700, it was now at $10,000, making them "bigger than the combined economies of the other countries in Central Asia and the Caucus". The minister said that Kazakhstan has been and would continue to be "a reliable supplier to the EU of hydrocarbon".
The landlocked state is already the third largest non-OPEC supplier to the EU, providing up to 30% of Austria and Germany's oil. With the development of new fields under the Caspian Sea, the minister said that they are confident that they will increase oil production from the current 1.6 million barrels a day to 2.5 million within five years.
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