Kazakhstan: Between Silk Road Economic Belt and Eurasian Economic Union

The focus of the paper is economic and political intentions of Kazakhstan in the context of regional integration. It has been agreed that Kazakhstan is a political stable country with attractive taxation policy and friendly attitudes for minority shareholders. Also Kazakhstan is one of the relatively successful countries among former USSR republic in terms of foreign investments. Nevertheless Kazakhstan being a post-soviet country is experiencing enormous problems/obstacles with the formation of independent economic policy; secondly it’s not easy for the new state to conduct, to implement new policy. Moreover Kazakhstan has a vast territory with the limited population. These economic difficulties along with the social reasons are forcing Kazakhstan to seek more stable economic partners; to consider opportunities for regional cooperation. Being historically connected with Russia Kazakhstan nowadays is getting new possibilities for cooperation outside of former USSR countries. One of the possible directions is China as a country who already made largest investments in Kazakhstan. So Kazakhstan today has two major integration vectors - Russia and China. Many experts have no doubt in the successful cooperation with these two countries. For example, the new Chinese Governemnt program Silk Road Economic Belt may be connected with the Kazakhstani Government program “Nurly Jol/Bright Future” as well as many Kazakhstani investment - industrial projects are connected with Russian industry. But obviously in both cases of regional cooperation Kazakhstan will be challenging with the problem of political integration. The point is how to make an economic  convergence without political integration commitments? This politically sensitive issue will be explored in our paper.