During his Central Asian tour last summer, Japan’s Prime-Minister
Shinzō Abe visited Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. He was
accompanied by the heads of a 100 Japanese companies seeking to discuss
business opportunities with their Central Asian counterparts.
The focus of the discussions around expanding the cooperation with
the Central Asian countries was on technologies in exchange for
resources.
Kazakhstan is Japan’s largest trade and economic partner in Central
Asia. Kazakhstan has uranium, and Japan has high technology. The former
is interested in selling its resource to the latter.
Even though Tokyo has revised its energy strategy after the
Fukushima-1 tragedy and has closed almost all of its nuclear power
stations, Japan is willing to share its experience in that area with
other countries.
During the Japanese Premier’s visit last summer, Kazakhstan’s
Kazatomprom and Japan’s Marubeni Utility Services signed a memorandum of
understanding on cooperation in nuclear energy. The purpose of the MoU
was to develop cooperation in nuclear energy and to explore the
possibility of building a light water reactor in Kazakhstan.
But, as the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev noted then,
the potential of the bi-lateral cooperation did not correspond to the
existing possibilities and needed to be stepped up. So a top-level
decision was made to expand cooperation.
This fall, the head of Kazakhstan is going to pay a return visit to
Tokyo. It is expected that new documents and agreements will be signed
during the forthcoming meetings in Japan. The governments of the two
countries are working on the development and finalising of those
documents.
At a direction of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, the Japanese organised
“The Future of Energy and Japanese Technologies” seminar in Astana last
week to discuss energy and technology cooperation in advance of the
future summit.
Representatives of Japanese and Kazakhstan companies attended the
event. Opening the meeting, Deputy Chairman of KazEnergy Association
Uzakbai Karabalin said that the volume of Japanese investment in the
Kazakh economy over the years of Kazakhstan’s independence had totaled
$4.5 billion.
In his opinion, this number compared to the other countries is very
low and does not meet the existing potential. “Mainly, the lion’s share
of this investment went to uranium production,” Karabalin said.
According to him, the oil and gas sector of Kazakhstan remains the
main strategic energy resource of the country. “This industry is facing
new challenges as a result of the falling commodity prices, so it is
setting new tasks for itself, namely, introduction of new, “clean”
technologies in the production and processing of oil, petrochemistry,
and energy saving. These may become promising areas for a mutually
beneficial cooperation,” Karabalin said.
For example, energy saving is one of the most difficult issues for
Kazakhstan. The losses are huge; the equipment at many plants that were
built in the time of the Soviet Union is obsolete.
Not just investment is needed, but, in particular, new energy saving
technologies and approaches. To this point, the National Energy Report
of Kazakhstan pays a special attention to energy preservation devoting a
whole section to that issue and identifying the areas and describing
the steps that need to be taken.
So why, with all the obvious benefits and opportunities for expanded
cooperation between Kazakhstan and Japan do the Japanese technologies
face difficulties in making their way to Kazakhstan?
There are two reasons for that, some Kazakh businessmen who wished to
remain unnamed told New Europe on the sidelines of the seminar.
The first reason is the high cost of the Japanese technologies and
the meticulousness of the Japanese representatives. Having said that,
the interviewees admitted that both those factors are well paid off by
the quality.
“Of course, the Chinese companies are more expeditious in closing the
deals and in signing the contracts. They offer a lower price, too, but
then they miss the project deadlines. The Japanese, one the other hand,
are “slow on getting into gear”, but then they are as good as their word
and they guarantee the quality”, – the Kazakh businessmen said.
The second reason is that tacit look out of Kazakhstan’s red tape for their Chinese partners. They are given priority.
During last year’s visit of Japan’s head of government to Kazakhstan,
the parties signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in
mineral resources between the Kazakh joint-stock company Kazgeology and
the Japanese National Corporation.
Commenting on that fact earlier, a political analyst Marat Shibutov
noted that Japan could do a lot of work in Kazakhstan. However, such two
heavyweights” as Japan and Kazakhstan will find themselves cramped in
there.
“During his visit, the Prime Minister of Japan ventured into an area
that is very sensitive for China – the gas sector of Turkmenistan and,
in particular, the Galkynysh field from which the CPR imports 30% of its
gas. He also did a good job in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Japan’s
priorities are obvious from the sizes of the signed agreements. If Japan
further increases its presence in Kazakhstan in the production of
rare-earth elements and uranium, that will be a direct challenge to
China,” the expert said.
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/japan-kazakhstan-share-nuclear-technology-resources/