Kazakhstan, Russia economies to change to innovative way of development - Medvedev

Astana. June 18. Kazakhstan Today - Kazakhstan and Russia economies need to change to innovative way of development. The salutatory message of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev to participants of Russian-Kazakhstan business-forum Innovative Way of Development - Core of Eurasian Integration was made public by the Ambassador of Russia to Kazakhstan Michael Bocharnikov on Tuesday, the agency reports.

"We have similar problems, among which are maintenance of further growth of national economies, strengthening of competitiveness in the world markets, and improvement of quality of life of citizens. We need to switch to innovative way of development, introduce high technologies, and increase investments into human capital," the message informs.

According to customs statistics of Kazakhstan, commodity turnover between Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation for 2007 made $ 16.3 billion that is in comparison with 2006 higher by 27.3 %. For the first quarter of this year commodity turnover has made $4.1 billion that is higher than during the similar period of 2007 by 25 %.

According to the National Bank of Kazakhstan, since 1993 until present time total inflow of direct investments from the Russian Federation into Kazakhstan has totaled $2.5 billion. From 2004 up to 2008 investment of Kazakhstan in the Russian Federation have made $715 million. The largest Russian investors in Kazakhstan are Lucoil and RusAL. Such Kazakhstan banks as TuranAlem, Kazkommertsbank, National Bank, and construction company Capital Partners work in Russia. More than 3 thousand enterprises with participation of the Russian capital are registered in Kazakhstan.

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