Kazakhstan

• Political relations
• Economic relations
• Development cooperation
• Cultural and education relations
• The German-Kazakh University (DKU) in Almaty

Last updated in April 2012

Political relations

The friendly relations between Germany and Kazakhstan are developing well, a fact underlined by Federal Chancellor Merkel’s two visits to Kazakhstan in 2010: her official visit on 18 July including a large business forum, and her participation in the OSCE Summit in Astana and her bilateral meeting with President Nazarbayev on 1 and 2 December.

President Nazarbayev visited Berlin on 8 February 2012 and had talks with Federal President Wulff and Federal Chancellor Merkel.

Federal Foreign Minister Westerwelle met with his Kazakh counterpart Kazykhanov in Berlin on 20 July 2011, after having attended the informal meeting of OSCE foreign ministers in Almaty a year earlier.

The Year of Germany in Kazakhstan 2010 was officially opened by Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office Pieper at a ceremony in Astana on 4 February 2010, the Year of Kazakhstan in Germany 2009 having previously been launched during a visit to Germany by President Nazarbayev on 4 February 2009. A number of important documents were signed during the official visit to Kazakhstan by Federal President Köhler in September 2009: an agreement on the German-Kazakh University in Almaty, a joint declaration on a Partnership for the Future, a declaration on an innovation and investment partnership and six business agreements.

The logistical supply of Germany’s ISAF contingent is conducted in accordance with the agreement on the transit of Federal Armed Forces’ matériel and personnel to Afghanistan, which was ratified in January 2008.

Economic relations

Germany is Kazakhstan’s sixth largest foreign trading partner. Developing positively in 2011, bilateral trade was worth EUR 6.2 billion.

Kazakhstan’s exports (EUR 4.46 billion) comprise petroleum, iron and steel goods and chemical products. German exports (EUR 1.73 billion) consist of machinery, computing services and electrical equipment, chemical products, motor vehicles and parts and pharmaceutical products.

The German Business Delegation for Central Asia in Almaty supervises German companies’ business activities in Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian countries and helps local firms establish business contacts with Germany. The German Business Club represents some 120 German company offices and branches. In addition, there are around 170 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with German capital interest.

The 5th meeting of the German-Kazakh Intergovernmental Working Group on Business and Trade (RAG) was held in Karaganda on 30 June 2011 and headed by Dr. Karl-Ernst Brauner, Director General for External Economic Policy at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, and Albert Rau, the Republic of Kazakhstan’s First Deputy Minister of Industry and New Technologies.

This intergovernmental forum addresses the overall conditions for German companies’ economic engagement in Kazakhstan as well as operational issues relating to German-Kazakh economic relations in the following sectors: commodities, industry, energy, agriculture, health care, environment and tourism.

Another bilateral body is the Kazakh-German Business Council for Strategic Cooperation, which was established on 1 October 2010 and is operated by banks and business companies. Headed by Peter Tils, Deutsche Bank’s CEO for Central and Eastern Europe, and Timur Kulibayev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the state holding company Samruk-Kazyna, the council seeks to pursue business opportunities and promote concrete projects.

As part of the German-Kazakh further-training programme for managers, more than 300 Kazakh managers have been invited to complete work experience stints in Germany, the aim being to promote direct contacts between German and Kazakh companies.

A bilateral investment protection agreement has been in force since 1995 and a double taxation agreement since 1998.

Development cooperation

As of April 2008, Kazakhstan ceased to be a partner country of German bilateral development cooperation.

With support from the Centrum für internationale Migration und Entwicklung (CIM) in Frankfurt am Main, there are currently some 10 German integrated experts working in Kazakh organizations. In addition, another 80 or so short-term experts are seconded to Kazakhstan by the Senior Expert Service every year.

Cultural and education relations

Key elements of bilateral cultural relations are the programme and language work of the Goethe Institute in Almaty, the exchange programme of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), which has some seven academic teachers there, and the Central Agency for Schools Abroad’s teacher-secondment programme (approximately seven seconded teachers). These teachers examine pupils taking the German-language Diploma II of the Standing Conference of German Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs at selected schools in Kazakhstan. The Robert Bosch Foundation has two academic teachers working in Kazakhstan.

Working as partner institutions of the Goethe Institute, there are German language centres in Astana, Karaganda, Pavlodar, Kustanai and Ust Kamenogorsk offering the chance to obtain internationally recognized certificates. The German Reading Rooms in Astana and Ust Kamenogorsk provide information on Germany as well as print, audio and video material from and on Germany. Every year, the DAAD finances stays in Germany for some 60-70 Kazakh students (university summer schools, partial and full grants, some of them for a several-year period) and looks after Kazakh scholarship holders in Germany who are participating in the Kazakh government programme “Bolashak” (Future).

There are partnerships between the Munich University of Technology and East Kazakhstan State Technical University and between the Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences (Faculties of Horticulture and Agriculture) and the Universities of Agriculture in Astana and Almaty. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation awards a number of research scholarships to particularly qualified Kazakh scientists and academics. School exchange and encounter programmes form a bridge between German and Kazakh partner schools. The Federal Foreign Office regularly invites Kazakh junior diplomats to Germany for further training. Since 2004, Kazakhstan has participated in the international parliamentary training programme run by the German Bundestag.

There is no German School in Kazakhstan but German is taught as a foreign language at several schools there. There are also grammar schools offering enhanced German instruction.

The German-Kazakh University (DKU) in Almaty

The DKU, which was set up in 1999 on the personal initiative of Kazakh and German academic teachers, is currently in the establishment phase. Its name is misleading as it is not a university in the German sense but rather a university of applied sciences. It is financed by the non-profit Fund for German-Kazakh Cooperation in Education. German project partners are the Zittau International Institute of Higher Education and several universities of applied sciences. The DKU is supported by the DAAD and Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Education and Science. Russian- and German-language teaching is modelled on German study regulations and takes into account Kazakh national education standards. The first study programmes based on the German model were introduced in 2007.

The ethnic German minority receives funding from Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior via the so-called Rebirth Societies that exist throughout the country. Their meeting centres are supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Goethe Institute. The Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa) supports the newspaper “Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung” (DAZ) by seconding two German media assistants.

There are some 800,000 ethnic Germans from Kazakhstan living in Germany, and in Kazakhstan itself approximately 220,000, who are largely integrated in Kazakh society. The origins of the German minority in Kazakhstan can be traced back to Stalin’s edict of 28 August 1941 ordering the deportation of ethnic Germans from Russia’s Volga Region. This led to the forced resettlement of a large number of the Volga Germans.