ASTANA. September 2. KAZINFORM /Meiram Baigarin/ Our country is worldwide known for its success in socio-economic development and active foreign policy, due to which it earned international prestige. 15 years ago Kazakhstan was a totally different country, like many other post -soviet countries Kazakhstan had a high rate of unemployment and low living standards.

What has happened to the country in such a short historical timeline?

Having become independent Kazakhstan had to define its place on the geopolitical map of the world, formulate national and state interests, define the system of foreign policy priorities and found the strategy for future foreign policy. Many international experts believe that these tasks were accomplished in a short period of time because Nursultan Nazarbayev led the country in the time of difficulties to the time of prosperity. Personal contacts established at the highest level by N. Nazarbayev helped in solving the tasks of developing Kazakhstan's foreign policy.

As the main goal of the country's foreign policy the President defined forming and ensuring favorable conditions for successful realization of the strategy of formation and development of Kazakhstan as a sovereign state. 'Being aware of its responsibility and consequences that might be caused by any military conflict, keeping peace is accepted as a prior goal of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan denies war or threat of military force as the means for achieving the goal. Kazakhstan intends to have a status of a nuclear free state and join the treaty on nonproliferation of nuclear weapon. Kazakhstan is adherent to the principle of no-first-use of weapons of mass destruction and supports the idea of this principle accepted by all the countries of the world community. Kazakhstan is for keeping established borders untouched, non-inference into the affairs of other countries.

Multi-vector policy became the basis of the foreign policy defined by N. Nazarbayev and this policy provides for development of friendly and predictable relations with all countries playing significant role in the world.

Thanks to the authority of Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan has become one of the leaders of Eurasian integration. As Russian experts note, Kazakhstan has become not just strategic partner of Russia but its natural competitor on the post-soviet space. Besides, the experts note that Kazakhstan successfully develops relations not only with the EurAsEC countries but with the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova) countries.

In this context one of the main achievements of Kazakhstan is the establishment of the Customs Union which includes Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan so far. At the beginning of 2010 a single customs tariff came into force. In fact the union, which was established to unite these three countries into one customs territory, started functioning quite recently. 'Despite all kinds of difficulties we have just commenced a new level of cooperation. This is a very important, anticipated event that became possible as a result of long hard work', Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said lately.

In 1992 N. Nazarbayev emphasized in his work 'Strategy of Formation and Development of Kazakhstan as a Sovereign State' that Kazakhstan was striving for establishing of a system of collective security of the world community. The OSCE has to play the major role in ensuring global security; the potential of this Organization is quite large. N. Nazarbayev believes that presidency of Kazakhstan in the OSCE in 2010 is a turning moment in relations between the West and the post-soviet countries. 

Kazakhstan greatly contributed to the enhancement of the regime of mass destruction weapon nonproliferation. After the Soviet Union collapse Kazakhstan possessed the world's fourth nuclear arsenal. Owing to a strong political will of President Nazarbayev Kazakhstan voluntarily embarked on a path of nuclear disarmament. On August 29, 1991 the President decreed to shut down the Semipalatinsk Test Site; in July 1992 ratified the Lisbon Protocol and pledged to accede to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as a non-nuclear weapons state. On December 13, 1993 Kazakhstan ratified the Treaty and on February 14, 1994 joined the IAEA.

N. Nazarbayev understands better than anyone else the necessity to maintain dialogue of civilizations, cultures and religions. About 130 nationalities and 46 confessions coexist and cooperate in Kazakhstan. Once in three years Astana hosts meetings of world and traditional religions' leaders. They are aimed at searching for mutual understanding and forming mechanisms of reducing tension in the conflict areas.

On January 29, 2010 President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev delivered his annual address to the nation "New Decade - New Economic Growth - New Opportunities for Kazakhstan", where he said "A very difficult period in the history of our country in the 21st century is coming to an end. The storm of the global crisis, which slowed the world economy, has not went down yet. But the crisis has already lost its original force. We were fully prepared for it, so its consequences were not very heavy for our country."

According to the President, we have addressed all the tasks set for the first decade of the 21^st century. The Head of the State reminded when many developed countries suffered from recession of 2009, Kazakhstan's economic growth made 1.1%, industrial - 1.7%. Gross and international reserves and assets of the National Fund increased more than 25 times and exceeded USD 50 billion over the past decade.

As for the Program of Accelerated Industrial and Innovative Development, the President pointed out the plans on implementation of 162 projects with KZT 6.5 trillion of total amount of investments. It makes more than 40% of the country's GDP. The program will allow to create more than 200 thousand new jobs within three years. 

Special attention is paid to the modernization of the political system of Kazakhstan. In the coming decade Kazakhstan will conduct the reform of the law-enforcement system. Its main provisions are determined in the Presidential Decree "On measures of raising efficiency of the law-enforcement activity and judicial system in the Republic of Kazakhstan".

Besides, the President urged the Government to implement a single budget program on development of entrepreneurship in the regions. From 2010 till 2020 the share of the small and medium businesses in the country's GDP must be increased to 40%. Kazakhstan should enter the 50 states with the most favorable business climate.

Kazakhstan is going to attract investments from China, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates as well as French, Italian and Russian companies totaling USD 20 billion for implementation of the Forced Industrialization Program.

Thus it is obvious that the multi-vector foreign policy of Kazakhstan and its balanced internal policy together with economic development helped our country assume high authority in the world.