Kazakhstan and Korea: from strategic dialogue to $19 billion in projects

The eco­nomic center­piece of the trip was the Cent­ral Asia– Repub­lic of Korea Busi­ness Sum­mit. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev noted that the region’s com­bined GDP had approached $550 bil­lion, while its growth rate had exceeded 6%. Kaza­kh­stan accounts for around 60% of Cent­ral Asia’s eco­nomy and roughly 70% of for­eign dir­ect invest­ment inflows. Dur­ing the visit, around 80 com­mer­cial agree­ments worth approx­im­ately $19 bil­lion were signed. “These are not merely state­ments of intent… but con­crete plans,” the Pres­id­ent stressed.

Kaza­kh­stan’s pro­posed model of cooper­a­tion com­bines the region’s resources with Korea’s indus­trial, tech­no­lo­gical and fin­an­cial cap­ab­il­it­ies. The coun­tries are already imple­ment­ing 51 indus­trial projects worth more than $4 bil­lion. The next step should be deeper loc­al­iz­a­tion, includ­ing around Hyundai and Kia plants, and the pro­duc­tion of higher-value goods.

Among the pri­or­it­ies, the Head of State high­lighted full-cycle projects in crit­ical min­er­als—from geo­lo­gical explor­a­tion to deep pro­cessing—par­ti­cip­a­tion by Korean com­pan­ies in devel­op­ing the Middle Cor­ridor, digital tech­no­lo­gies and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. Kaza­kh­stan pro­posed estab­lish­ing a Cent­ral Asia–Korea Cen­ter for Advanced Tech­no­lo­gies at Alem.ai and, in the agri­cul­tural sec­tor, a joint food cluster focused on pro­cessing and exports. A Com­pre­hens­ive Pro­gram for Trade, Eco­nomic and Invest­ment Cooper­a­tion for 2027–2030 will be developed to ensure the sys­tem­atic imple­ment­a­tion of the agree­ments.

The regional sum­mit was com­ple­men­ted by an extens­ive bilat­eral busi­ness pro­gram. Korea has already inves­ted more than $12 bil­lion in Kaza­kh­stan, where more than a thou­sand com­pan­ies with Korean cap­ital oper­ate. Meet­ings with lead­ers of KIND, Hyundai Motor Group, Lotte and Han­wha focused on con­crete projects, ran­ging from infra­struc­ture for Alatau City and the pro­duc­tion of auto­mot­ive com­pon­ents and a new Hyundai Tuc­son model to a gas-pro­cessing plant, hotels, med­ical tech­no­lo­gies and digital solu­tions.

Alatau City emerged as a show­case for the part­ner­ship. The Korean side was presen­ted with ini­ti­at­ives involving KIND, KAIST and Korea Air­ports Cor­por­a­tion: K-Smart Town, edu­ca­tion and research infra­struc­ture, digital mod­el­ing, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, drones and air taxis. The agree­ment to open a KAIST branch cam­pus in Alatau strengthens the project’s tech­no­lo­gical and edu­ca­tional dimen­sions.

The visit also had an import­ant human­it­arian dimen­sion. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Cho Jung-sik, Speaker of the National Assembly of the Repub­lic of Korea, vis­ited a Kazakh eth­nic vil­lage in Seoul’s Han­gang Park. The dis­plays included a yurt, the “Zheti Qazyna” install­a­tion, tra­di­tional crafts and musical instru­ments. A joint per­form­ance of the com­pos­i­tion “Friend­ship” by the Birlik ensemble and the bal­let troupe of the State Aca­demic Korean Theatre sym­bol­ized the affin­ity between the two peoples.