YEKATERINBURG, July 12. /TASS/. Kazakhstan intends to continue its participation in the Innoprom international industrial trade fair as the event offers an effective format for domestic Kazakh companies to interact with partners, Kazakh Vice Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development Ilyas Ospanov told TASS on the sidelines of this year’s Innoprom in Yekaterinburg.
"We were the [official Innoprom] partner country last year and we are among the main guests this year. Certainly, we want to continue participating in the trade fair because that’s what the market wants. That is, the market sees that it produces results, [market players] want to come and attend. This is very effective; all questions can be resolved quickly [at this venue]," Ospanov said.
Innoprom has proven to be a successful platform for raising investment, the vice minister said. Face-to-face meetings can help expedite the signing of contracts in different sectors, Ospanov noted. "We inked thirty agreements last year. All of them pertain to Russian-Kazakh relations. There were a couple of purely trade agreements, but mostly they pertain to projects within Kazakhstan for resolving a specific problem. We have already signed six agreements this year," the official added.
About 250 companies and 900 delegates from Kazakhstan are taking part in the Innoprom trade fair this year. "This is almost twice as many as there were last year," Ospanov said.