Speaking at the Senate of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nurlan Rakhmetov, Managing Director for Government Relations, detailed Samruk-Kazyna JSC’s extensive range of international partnerships, cooperating with more than 50 large international companies.

21 of those companies are listed in the Forbes Global 2000 ranking with an annual turnover not less than USD 1 billion.

Nurlan Rakhmetov spoke of the projects jointly implemented with foreign investors during a round table discussion on November 10, stating: “the Fund is developing a number of projects in the processing sectors with high export potential. For example, the Fund’s companies work with Schneider Electric (France) for the production and maintenance of control and measuring instruments, as well as CGNPC (China) and AREVA (France) for the production of fuel assemblies for nuclear power plants.”

He noted that General Electric is a shareholder in a subsidiary of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy’s subsidiary, a locomotive plant, while the world leader in the bulk cargo sector, COSCO Group, participates in the management of the dry port of KTZE-Khorgos Gateway LLP. "Negotiations on the sale of stake in the electric locomotive plant to a major French engineering company Alstom are in the final stages," Mr Rakhmetov commented.

General Electric (USA), CAMECO (Canada) and GRACE (USA) were said to be among the possible partners for the Fund’s work to digitalize the processing of raw materials. According to Mr Rakhmetov, negotiations are also under way with Alibaba (China) to allow domestic producers to access world markets through Alibaba sites. The deal would facilitate the transit of Alibaba’s goods through the territory of Kazakhstan, e-commerce development and the integration of payment systems.

Reflecting on the positive economic reforms taking place across Kazakhstan, he continued: "Kazakhstan jumped from third to first place in protecting minority investors in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2018 rating published in October this year. This shows the increasing level of transparency of corporate governance in the national companies, where shareholders have the opportunity to speak out and actively participate in major corporate decision-making".