ADB Cites CAREC Role in Regional Economic Cooperation at Astana forum
ADB CWTC Director Xiaohong Yang met with Kazakhstan First Vice Minister of Investment and Development, Zhenis Kassymbek, in Astana to discuss ADB’s ongoing support in transport and future partnership opportunities.
In her talk on the New Silk Way at the 8th Astana Economic Forum, Yang highlighted the CAREC Program’s role in regional cooperation and integration.
ADB Vice-President Wencai Zhang earlier delivered the keynote address at the forum. He stated that the CAREC Program has already undertaken investment projects worth more than $24.6 billion, of which ADB provided about $9 billion in regional infrastructure.
“This will help lead countries into global value chains-an important way of fostering diversification and structural change,” he said.
Planned transport investments until 2020 will focus on developing 30,000 kilometers of road along six multimodal transport corridors.
This network will connect markets in the People’s Republic of China with Azerbaijan through Kazakhstan-providing access to Europe-and stretches from Kazakhstan in the north to Pakistan’s seaports in the south.Investments for all six corridors until 2020 are estimated to reach $38.8 billion.
Zhang also talked about CAREC’s economic corridor development study on using physical infrastructure to drive and organize economic activity in the region, and the ADB-supported CAREC Institute to address institutional capacity issues.
He also met with Kazakhstan Prime Minister Karim Massimov and National Economy Minister and ADB Governor for Kazakhstan Erbolat Dossaev to discuss ADB operations in the country and ways to further strengthen their partnership.
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