ASTANA, March 31. /TASS/. Kazakhstan needs to seek access for domestic manufacturers to major regional markets, including the Eurasian Economic Union, incumbent Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has said in his election program.
"In the course of Kazakhstan’s integration policy over the previous years in general the most important tools for expanding the involvement of the economy in the world economic ties were formed," Nazarbayev says.
"On their basis there is a need to seek access for our producers to big regional markets and also the liberalization of customs and import and export procedures in the Eurasian Economic Union," the document reads.
The Treaty on establishing the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) was signed by the presidents of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in Astana on May 29, 2014 and went into effect from January 1, 2015. Armenia also became the member of the EEU in January, and Kyrgyzstan is expected to join the bloc later this year.
Nazarbayev’s election platform, "Modern State for All: Five Institutional Reforms," together with the programs of other presidential candidates was published on Tuesday in the republic’s newspaper, the Kazakhstanskaya Pravda.
The program focuses on the results that have been already achieved as part of the republic’s integration in the world economy. "Together with our partners we have created the Eurasian Economic Union. A new Agreement on expanded partnership and cooperation with the European Union is also ready for signing. The process of Kazakhstan’s accession to the WTO has entered the final phase," the document says.
Kazakhstan is due to hold early presidential elections on April 26. Three candidates have been officially registered for the key post. Nazarbayev, who heads of the ruling Nur Otan party, became the first of them.
The two others are a member of Kazakhstan’s Communist People’s Party, Turgun Syzdykov, and independent candidate and chairman of Kazakhstan’s Federation of Trade Unions, Abelgazi Kusainov.