Kazakh-Czech relations

Prior to the establishment of relations between Kazakhstan and Serbia, diplomatic relations between the USSR , which included the Kazakh SSR , and Czechoslovakia (the predecessor of the Czech Republic) were operating. Diplomatic relations between Kazakhstan and the Czech Republic were established on January 1, 1993 . The opening of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the Republic of Hungary and the Czech Republic took place concurrently in September 1993, and in December 1994 the Embassy of the Czech Republic in the Republic of Kazakhstan was opened. Since April 1997, the Diplomatic Mission of the Republic of Kazakhstan has been operating in the Czech Republic, transformed in 2004 into an Embassy. The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Czech Republic to the Republic of Kazakhstan since August 2014 has been Elishka Zhigova, the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the Czech Republic since April 22, 2015, Serzhan Abdykarimov ^[1] .

From September 8 to 10, 2004, Czech President Vaclav Klaus paid a visit to Kazakhstan, during the visit he signed the Declaration on the development of cooperation between the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Czech Republic, the Agreement on economic, industrial and scientific-technical cooperation and the Agreement on cooperation in the field of standardization, metrology and certification. In 2012, the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev paid a state visit to the Czech Republic, meeting with his colleague Vaclav Klaus. They discussed deepening economic cooperation between the two countries ^[2] . Two years later, Nazarbayev met with Klaus’s successor Milos Zeman and discussed not only further economic cooperation, but also Czech assistance in diversifying the economy of Kazakhstan ^[3] .

Economic cooperation between the two countries is based on a number of bilateral agreements concluded in 1996, 1998 and 2004. From 2009 to 2014, the trade turnover increased from $ 200 million in 2009 to $ 1.2 billion in 2014, however, due to falling oil prices in 2015, it fell to $ 666 million ^[4] . The main areas of economic cooperation are agriculture and mechanical engineering.

The Embassy of the Czech Republic is in Astana ^[5] , the representative office of the Embassy is in Almaty ^[6] . The Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan is located in Prague, the Honorary Consulate is in Jaromer ^[7] .