I am pleased to warmly welcome you at the meeting of the Board, which is dedicated to the preparations to the CICA Business Council and Business Forum sessions to be held on 27 June this year.
Our meeting today is being first time chaired by Mr.Raimbek Batalov in his capacity as the Chairman of the Board of the CICA Business Council.
It is my pleasure to briefly introduce Mr.Raimbek Batalov who was recently appointed as the Chairman of the Presidium of the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan.
For a long time, Mr.Batalov has been in charge of large industrial facilities in Kazakhstan.
Currently Mr.Batalov contributes to advancing economic dimension in a number of state and nongovernmental institutions as:
Mr. Batalov has extensive experience with international organizations: he has been working as
I am certain that under his able leadership the Board will acquire a new quality and substance.
Distinguished members of the Board,
let me brief you on the dynamics that CICA gained since our meeting on 21 January this year.
First.
The meeting of the Senior Officials Committee on March 30 became a very important event in the CICA history:
-For the first time, all 27 Member States expressed their support to the Kazakh Chairmanship proposal to launch the process of transformation of CICA into a full-fledged organization at the upcoming CICA Summit to be held in October this year;
-All 27 Member States welcomed the Concept of Transformation, which was developed by the Kazakh Chairmanship after in-depth consultations with Member States.
Second.
I would also like to inform you that CICA Plan of Implementation of Confidence Building Measures for 2022 contains 39 events, 13 of them are related to the CICA Economic Dimension. Under the above dimension CICA will host events on e-commerce in SME, tourism, microfinance, waste management, agriculture, industrial production as well as Finance Summit, Business Council and Business Forum.
Third.
I am also very pleased to inform you that my consultations with the leadership of the Astana International Financial Centre resulted in a decision to hold the Fifth Plenary Session of the Business Council and the Seventh Business Forum in cooperation with this reputable international organization.
This decision was discussed during my meeting with the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Mr. Alikhan Smailov.
The Presidential Administration issued special supportive decision on conducting above CICA events on the margins of International Finance Days in cooperation with Astana International Financial Centre.
Holding CICA events on the sidelines of the International Finance Days provides free access to the panels of this international conference while for participation in the events of Astana International Financial Centre a fee is usually charged due to the very high level of participants, including Nobel laureates.
A representative of the Astana International Financial Centre is invited to our meeting and will make presentation on how to contribute to CICA events in its capacity as International Hub in the field Finance.
The Secretariat agreed on this decision with you under the silence procedure and prepared draft programmes for both events, which we submitted for your kind consideration. Today we will have an opportunity to discuss the above draft documents.
Fourth.
for the last several months I have been involved in extensive consultations with a number of CICA Member States, Observers and Partners while travelling to respective capitals. Happy to inform that general perception of CICA process including CICA transformation is quite positive and constructive.
In particular, I had a chance to meet with the leadership of Organization of Economic Cooperation, UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia, UN Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia, Eurasian Economic Commission. Our partners shown general interest in engagement in productive interaction with CICA in Economic Dimension.
Therefore, I requested them to propose experts in Business, Trade, SME, Digitalization to contribute to the above CICA events.
Dear members of the Board, this is our vision on how to increase the effectiveness of upcoming sessions of CICA Business Council and Business Forum.
Thank you.
