Role of Kazakhstan in a Belt and Road Initiative project
The idea of the New Silk Road project (also Belt and Road Initiative – BRI) was first pitched in 2013 by the President of the People's Republic of China (PRC) Xi Jinping. This project contains the Silk Road Economic Belt as well as the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The main goal of this project is the creation a modern transport infrastructure in Eurasia, in order to optimize shipping of goods between Asia and Europe. Since then, this project was in an active development that involves building and optimization of the transport infrastructure, integration of the project into the economy of the involved countries, signing agreements and deals between the countries and also improving the relationship between PRC and countries-participants of this project. Because this project is considered global and international for Eurasia, Kazakhstan views it as an important for the political and economical state of the country. The geographic position of the country makes it one of the most important participants of the project. This factor makes it important to identify other reasons behind this idea of Kazakhstan being an important destination of economical investment of PRC. Other important objectives are role and involvement of Kazakhstan in the development of the BRI project. This article reviews the Belt and Road Initiative project, how Kazakhstan is involved in this project and its role in it in the economical, political and logistical areas. The results of the implementation of the project is also present in this article.