11 December 2017, London - Samruk-Kazyna JSC has conducted the second meeting of the Kazakh-British Business Council in London, in partnership with the UK Department for International Trade.

The main goal of the event was to share the positive developments taking place in Kazakhstan's national companies with the international community, as well as to familiarise British companies with the investment opportunities on offer in Kazakhstan.

Attendees had the opportunity to learn about some of Samruk-Kazyna's portfolio companies, which are Kazakhstan's largest national companies, including: Kazakhtelecom JSC, the telecommunications operator; Kazpost JSC, the postal service; NC Kazakhstan Temir Zholy JSC, the railway company; NAC Kazatomprom JSC, the uranium producer; and Air Astana JSC, the national airline. The heads of the portfolio companies discussed the competitive advantages of their businesses both on a regional and global levels, digitalisation projects and future business development plans.

Baljeet Kaur Grewal, Managing Director for Strategy and Portfolio Management of Samruk-Kazyna, commented: "Currently, around 270 Fortune 500 companies have operations in Kazakhstan, and Samruk-Kazyna has partnerships with GE, Amazon, Microsoft and IBM. Through this event and a number of upcoming bilateral meetings that we intend to organise, we aim to strengthen economic relations between the UK and Kazakhstan and attract more British investment in our country."

Emma Nicholson, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, Trade Representative of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in Kazakhstan, added: “British financial services and legal advisers are working hard to boost the development of the Astana International Financial Centre, and will continue to do so. London remains the financial centre of Europe, and is willing to work with Kazakhstan to implement its ambitious privatisation programme, which has proved successful so far.”

Erlan Idrissov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Kazakhstan to Great Britain, noted: “The very fact that this economic event is taking place reflects the strength of the bilateral relationship between our two countries. I am very proud that at the end of the year in which we celebrated the 25^th anniversary of relations between the UK and Kazakhstan, we are enjoying this busy day full of economic dialogue.”

The event brought together around 120 representatives of the British business community.

A meeting of the Kazakh-British Intergovernmental Commission took place in the afternoon, during which the practical aspects of the countries' bilateral partnership in the mining, energy and financial services sectors were discussed, among others.