Theme of the lecture № 14. Foreign trade of Kazakhstan and wto

Thesis:

The economy of Kazakhstan is the largest economy in Central Asia. It possesses enormous oil reserves as well as minerals and metals. It also has considerable agricultural potential with its vast steppe lands accommodating both livestock and grain production, as well as developed space infrastructure, which took over all launches to the International Space Station from the Space Shuttle. The mountains in the south are important for apples and walnuts; both species grow wild there. Kazakhstan's industrial sector rests on the extraction and processing of these natural resources and also on a relatively large machine building sector specializing in construction equipment, tractors, agricultural machinery, and some military items.

GDP Structure (Statistics Agency data)

Last year, gross domestic product volume (GDP) was USD 186,199,487,000 in current prices. This is a 7.5% increase compared with 2010. In GDP makeup,  the production of commodities share is 43.2%, services – 51.8%. Thus, last year the production of commodities resulted in USD 80, 403, 710,000, agriculture, hunting and forestry, fish farming – USD 9,605 billion, industry – USD 58.442 billion, construction – USD 12,356,568,000, tertiary industries – USD 96,530,123,000, and net taxes on products and imports – USD 12,996,823,000.

Economic policy of Kazakhstan on the modern stage

Kazakhstan gains a considerable share of profit from the export of oil and other mineral resources, moreover, economic policy of Kazakhstan is focused on shifting away from increasing mined deposits, extraction volumes, and the export of raw materials and to more output of finished products with high value added.

In the recent past, the trade policy of Kazakhstan had features that were problematic from the standpoint of WTO accession. The Asian Development Bank, a source that invites credence, comments that: “Kazakhstan has a rather complex tariff schedule with a large number of tariff bands and a high maximum tariff rate, although its non-weighted average tariff is not high.” ADB 2006, Table 3.1 adds numbers to these comments: it shows a maximum tariff rate of 100 percent, and says that the unweighted average tariff is 7.4 percent.

Kazakhstan has begun the closing stage of negotiations about the introduction into Worldwide trading organization (WTO) which have been initiated in 1996. Bilateral reports are signed already with sixteen countries, only for last two months the special Study Group has carried on negotiations with six countries-members of WTO - the USA, Canada, Brazil, Taiwan, Switzerland, Australia, as well as with the European Union.

The introduction into WTO bears with itself both pluss, and minuses. On the one hand, it opens to the enterprises of the countries-members access to cheaper import accessories and raw material, and the population – to cheaper goods and services. But, on the other hand, in spite of the fact that the economy as a whole wins, separate branches can injure, and it is essential.

The introduction into WTO bears with itself both pluss, and minuses. On the one hand, it opens to the enterprises of the countries-members access to cheaper import accessories and raw material, and the population – to cheaper goods and services. But, on the other hand, in spite of the fact that the economy as a whole wins, separate branches can injure, and it is essential.

Literature: 1-36.