Leaders of Kazakhstan and India both have a vision to take the people of their respective countries on the path of development and economic progress through their recently announced signature programs "Nur Zhol" and "Make in India", believes Kazakhstan's Ambassador to India Bulat Sarsenbayev.
In an interview given to ANI, Ambassador Sarsenbayev said Kazakhstan would happily welcome India's participation in its innovative and development-linked initiatives being promoted through "Nur Zhol".
"Nur Zhol", he said, is new and unusual in the sense that "the government of Kazakhstan, the president of Kazakhstan, came to the conclusion that regional development now is a bit difficult, there are many challenges, you know with many sanctions on Russia, sanctions on some other countries, and it doesn't help to move economies."
"For us, we are not directly under the sanctions, but, as a partner of Russia, next year, we are going to start an economic union, and Kazakhstan will somehow be affected, not directly, but indirectly because of this development. That's why our president, during such a difficult time and predicting more difficulties in the near future, addressed the people and described his mission," said Ambassador Sarsenbayev.
The envoy said that President Nazarbayev explained his message to the ordinary people of Kazakhstan, wherein he stressed on not cutting social programs, not cutting some subsidies, "like pensions to some ordinary people , instead to increase pension to the retired people who worked in the government, the pensions will be increased 7,8,9 percent. And the president made clear that we will not cut the social programs."
He said the objective of the "Nor Zhol" policy was to ensure stability "like the Norwegians".
"Now, we have enough funds," Ambassador Sarsenbayev said, adding that the Kazakh Government is very keen to take the program for industrialization based on innovation forward to ensure a better future for its citizens.
"During the last five years, we have developed industries; we needed raw materials from Russia and China to develop our infrastructure as we are a big country like India. Now, we produce them in Kazakhstan. In the next five years, we are going to focus on industries based on innovation, "he said.
On being asked whether Kazakhstan saw a participative role for India in "Nur Zhol", Ambassador Sarsenbayev said, "Of course India is welcome to participate. We know that India is also taking some steps in the last decade in this area. India is welcome to participate in this innovation program. We even have a policy to give some tax holidays for this period."
When asked whether he saw any similarity between President Nazarbayev's "Nur Zhol" announcement and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make in India', he said, "Yes, This is a vision of two leaders, how to move the country forward. Of course, there are varieties like different societies and challenges some times. But in general, in common, we have similar challenges. The main challenge of the governments is to make people happy, ordinary people happy, to provide new jobs, to give a good salary, to give good education to the children, to provide healthcare to the people. So, this is the basic things we have to do in order to see our people happy with the governments, with the leaders."
"I believe that we (Kazakhstan and India) are moving in the same way, otherwise we face already in the world, revolutions, uprisings, instability in the society, and that is why economic reforms are very important, sometimes more important than some political reforms," he added.
As an example, he cited the fate of the erstwhile Soviet Union, and its disintegration.
"Fifteen countries started from the same level 23 years ago, from the same environment, from the same social and economic things from one country. Now, after 23 years, we see how we are different, because some countries started from politically concentrated, some from economic concentration to provide some economic minimum to the people, and those who started economic reforms are more advanced now," he said.
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