Dialogue with the Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Malaysia- H.E. Mr. Bulat Sugurbayev
We were honoured with a visit by His Excellency Ambassador Mr. Bulat Sugurbayev and the First Secretary, Head of Economic Division, Mr. Amir Aldazhanov, from the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Malaysia.
The small event started with a warm welcome by President Martin Ang and the 20 representatives from 12 of our member companies. The meeting quickly got underway with each company representative giving a short 2-3 minute introduction of themselves and posing their one question each to His Excellency. This was followed by an interesting open dialogue session where His Excellency and First Secretary answered directly all the questions (and more) posed by our Members.
After the dialogue, our President Martin Ang, presented His Excellency with a copy of the MCMTC Book and also invited His Excellency and Kazakhstan companies to participate in the upcoming MCMTC – ASEANplus++ event in November, titled WE2025.
The insightful conversations continued throughout the delightful lunch of home-cooked Nasi Lemak prepared by our member, Ms Dorothy Ong.
Key takeaways:
- Population of Kazakhstan – 20 million people and growing, landlocked but well connected to Europe, Russia and China. Almaty is the largest City and Astana is the Capital City.
- Economic Union of 5 Central Asian Countries – enter any one country and have free access to all 5 and beyond.
- 90% using cashless payments, with a well-developed, e-connected/digitalised Government system. There are e-commerce platforms and all processes can be accessed through the phone.
- Food culture is strong, but society is open to new cuisines including spicy dishes (ex. Korean, Japanese and Chinese). Traditional spices used locally are red pepper, black pepper & salt. Vegetables, lamb and beef are mostly fresh and organic.
- Strong support from the Government, encouraging trade, investments and setting up industries to cater to the Central Asian, European and Russian market.
- The Embassy had earlier shared a list of interesting events/ exhibitions/ conferences for 2025.The Embassy reaffirms their support for MCMTC’s trade mission and will B-to-B / Business matching sessions for our various businesses.
MCMTC will definitely be going to Kazakhstan very soon!
