The Turgusun Hydropower Station in Kazakhstan lies quietly surrounded by mountains, where artificiality and nature are integrated, drawing picturesque scenery. The Turgusun Hydropower Station in Kazakhstan, constructed by China Water Resources and Electric Power External Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China Three Gorges Group Co., Ltd., will put all units into operation in July 2021.

Turgusun Hydropower Project is the first key project in the field of China-Kazakhstan capacity cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative to land and put into production power generation. Three Gorges China Hydropower, after multiple rounds of on-site inspections and negotiations, and adequate risk control, signed an EPC contract with the owner in November 2014, and officially started construction in 2017. After the completion of the hydropower project, it has received great attention from the Kazakh government and has been included in Kazakhstan’s 2015-2019 National Industrial Innovation and Development Plan. Kazakhstan’s prime minister and deputy prime minister have visited the project site many times. The surging vitality of the river outlines a strong stroke in the joint construction of the Green Belt and Road Initiative on the land of Kazakhstan.

Karaubek Bymukhabetov, general manager of Turgusun Co., Ltd. said, "We have completed the construction of Turgusun Hydropower Station without destroying the ecological environment and sacrificing the beautiful scenery."

According to Baimukhabetov, the design of the hydropower station adopts Chinese standards that have reached the world's leading level, and the electromechanical equipment used is the most advanced in China. The degree of automation of the hydropower station is very high. The staff can monitor the operation status of the hydropower station from thousands of miles away. "Such an advanced hydropower station is still the first in Kazakhstan. In the future, Kazakhstan is also preparing to continue the construction of the Turgusun River with the Three Gorges Hydropower Project. The second and third hydropower stations in the cascade planning of the river basin."

"I understand China's One Belt One Road initiative, which brings good-neighborly friendship and pragmatic and enterprising mutually beneficial relations in the industrial field. I thank the Chinese people and Chinese experts for helping us build such a good project." Baimukhabetov said.

From scratch, from point to point, the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative has achieved remarkable results, and the cooperation between Kazakhstan and China as the "starting point" is becoming a model of cooperation between countries under the Belt and Road Initiative.

The first place to become a model of cooperation

Since the President of Kazakhstan Nazarbayev proposed to link Kazakhstan's "Bright Road" new economic policy with the Belt and Road Initiative in 2014, the two countries have deepened their economic and trade cooperation. According to Chinese statistics, from January to August 2020, China-Kazakhstan bilateral trade volume was US$13.17 billion, an increase of 1% year-on-year, and it regained positive growth under the conditions of the epidemic. During the same period, China's direct investment in Kazakhstan reached 360 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 80% over the same period in 2019.

"As soon as China proposed the'Silk Road Economic Belt', Kazakhstan made it clear that it would participate in it." Zhang Xiyun, the former Chinese ambassador to Kazakhstan and the former director of the Eurasian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said. Compatibility in the fields of international economy and trade, humanities, etc.

According to the chairman of the Kazakhstan International Relations Committee, Yerlan Tennem Beurekalin, the One Belt One Road has not only deepened the exchanges and cooperation between China and Kazakhstan in various fields, but also promoted the promotion of economic and trade exchanges between Kazakhstan and Central Asian countries.

"The construction of the Belt and Road has given Kazakhstan new opportunities in the Central Asia region." Kalin said. Relations between large economies and Central Asian countries have also developed very well in recent years. The connection of transportation routes is one of the most important reasons."

For Kazakhstan, the most obvious example is the 1,000-kilometer-long "Jezkazgan-Beineu" railway that traverses its central part. According to Kalin, after the line is opened to traffic, it can save 3 days for goods to be transported from China to Aktau Seaport in Kazakhstan. More importantly, Kazakhstan currently accounts for 30% of the total cargo volume in the Caspian Sea. Through the construction of Aktau Sea Port and railway lines, this volume can be increased by more than 2 times.

Promoted by the governments of the two countries, China-Kazakhstan capacity cooperation projects have landed and blossomed. As of May 2017, the two countries have formed a list of key cooperation projects worth 27 billion U.S. dollars. 34 projects have been completed and put into production, and 43 projects are under implementation. The following examples have emerged:

Kazakhstan's first and currently only electrolytic aluminum plant-Pavlodar electrolytic aluminum plant was designed and constructed by China Nonferrous Metals Construction Co., Ltd. Most of the equipment of the plant is purchased from China, with a total investment of nearly 1 billion U.S. dollars and an annual output of 250,000 tons of electrolytic aluminum.

The largest asphalt plant in Kazakhstan-Aktau Asphalt Plant was jointly invested by China CITIC Group and the Kazakhstan National Petroleum and Natural Gas Company, and was completed and put into operation in 2013. The plant is the first modern oil processing enterprise built after Kazakhstan's independence.

The areas of China-Kazakhstan capacity cooperation are not limited to raw material processing industries such as non-ferrous metals and petroleum industries, but also extend to the direction of industrial finished products. For example, the Kustanai Jianghuai Automobile Project Base is the latest achievement of China-Kazakhstan capacity cooperation.

Mannatech focuses on the investment, construction and operation of new energy power stations. With the east wind of the One Belt One Road, it has become the most competitive clean energy supplier in Kazakhstan, occupying about 30% of the local market share. Take the Kapshagay photovoltaic power station built by Mannatech as an example. This is the largest single photovoltaic power station in the local area and the first project to adopt a new construction model. The six cumulative 380MW new energy projects invested and constructed by Mannatech in Kazakhstan have all been included in the “List of Key Projects for China-Kazakhstan Capacity Cooperation”. It can be seen that the production capacity cooperation between China and Kazakhstan has made considerable progress.

From scratch, bright spots appear frequently

In recent years, the Belt and Road cooperation between China and Kazakhstan has been fully rolled out, with rapid progress and remarkable results in various fields. China and Kazakhstan are extremely complementary in terms of resource endowments and industrial division of labor. Therefore, there is a huge space for cooperation in production capacity, which can lead Kazakhstan to build an international channel, accelerate the process of industrialization, expand eastward shipping demand, and create the four major "digital Kazakhstan" Implementation of the strategy.

Nowadays, the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative is shifting towards high-quality development. Kazakhstan is rich in energy resources and is known as the world's energy and raw material base. At present, Kazakhstan has proven oil reserves of nearly 5 billion tons, ranking 9th in the world, and its oil production has gradually increased, or will reach 81 million tons. The petroleum industry is the pillar industry of Kazakhstan, and oil revenue accounts for half of its fiscal revenue. In addition, Kazakhstan is also very rich in metal deposits, and the reserves of various non-ferrous metals are among the top in the world.

However, due to the sharp drop in the prices of international commodities such as oil and minerals in recent years, Kazakhstan's economic development is also facing unprecedented difficulties. China has the world's largest industry and manufacturing industry and has huge demand for raw materials and resources. This makes China and Kazakhstan have complementary advantages. China has a natural attraction to Kazakhstan. However, the capacity cooperation between China and Kazakhstan is not a one-way demand for energy resources from Kazakhstan. Instead, it uses Kazakhstan’s resource endowments to carry out deep processing and extend to downstream industries to establish a complete industrial system for Kazakhstan, as well as for China. Enterprises increase profits.

For China, the petroleum industry, chemical industry, infrastructure industry and other fields have achieved a leap from following to leading, but at the same time, industries such as petroleum products, electrolytic aluminum and asphalt have all experienced overcapacity problems. At the same time, Kazakhstan has strong demand for electrolytic aluminum and other products, but it mainly relies on imports. Therefore, China-Kazakhstan production capacity cooperation will help quickly transform these superior industries in China into Kazakhstan's production capacity, meet its market demand, solve Kazakhstan's domestic employment problems, and promote the process of Kazakhstan's industrialization.

Entering a new stage of the Belt and Road construction, China and Kazakhstan, which have frequently seen bright spots in infrastructure and oil and gas cooperation, are necessary and have the potential to explore more areas of cooperation. In the field of traditional cooperation, the two countries are also discussing how to use the existing foundation to promote more cooperation. For Alman Nurlanovich Sadimov, chairman and consultant of the Kazakhstan Energy Enterprise Association, renewable energy is a "rich mine."

Alman Nurlanovich Sadimov said, "China has made many breakthroughs in the field of coal-to-natural gas. As a major coal country, Kazakhstan hopes to explore the possibility of cooperation."

The future can be expected, dreams will become reality

"The two countries are politically friendly, the China-Kazakhstan cooperation mechanism is relatively complete, and the industries of the two countries are highly complementary. China's technical strength, financial strength, personnel team, industrial chain capabilities, and market demands have formed a good complementarity with Kazakhstan. "Wang Kewen, deputy secretary-general of the China Overseas Development Association, said.

The implementation of production capacity cooperation projects has further released the demand for roads, railways, ports and other infrastructures, and promoted the connection of facilities. China and Kazakhstan continue to explore the potential for port, transportation, and logistics cooperation, and accelerate the construction of the New Eurasian Continental Bridge, the China-Central Asia-Western Asia Economic Corridor, and the "Shuangxi Highway" project, which has strongly promoted the docking and greening of the transportation infrastructure between the two parties. The pragmatic cooperation in energy cooperation and other fields has created a new speed of China-Kazakhstan cooperation and also elevated the relations between the two countries to a new historical height.

The existing China-Kazakhstan capacity cooperation projects have greatly promoted China-Kazakhstan interconnection and trade facilitation. At the same time, bilateral trade has become more balanced, reversing the situation that China’s exports to Kazakhstan have always been greater than imports, and promoting the economic development of the two countries. In short, there are many areas of cooperation between China and Kazakhstan in the Belt and Road Initiative, and cooperation in production capacity is needed to lead them, so that the problem of unbalanced industrial structure in Kazakhstan can be effectively solved.

China-Kazakhstan, guided by production capacity cooperation, will have the potential to provide a demonstration. Since the launch of China-Kazakhstan capacity investment cooperation, in addition to rapid progress in strategic aspects and cooperation mechanisms, positive progress has also been made in specific project cooperation, and early results have blossomed everywhere. Therefore, this brand-new concept and method of cooperation is not only applicable to Kazakhstan, but is also expected to expand to countries related to the Belt and Road Initiative, especially resource-based countries, to drive these countries to achieve common development, and to enable China's overseas interests to achieve sustainable development. Editor/Sang Xiaomei