Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan covers an area of approximately 2.7 million square kilometers, spanning two different continents, Europe and Asia. Formerly belonging to the Soviet Union as one of its autonomous republics, it gained independence in 1991, following the dissolution of the USSR. It is currently a presidential republic, whose capital is Astana.

With a population of about 19 million, it is ranked 157th most populous country in the world, with a density of 7 people per KM. The main ethnic groups in the country are Kazakhs and Russians. In addition to them are Uzbek, Ukrainian, Uyghur, Tatar, and other minorities.

As one of the largest countries in the world, it borders Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and China to the east. Bordered on the west by the Caspian Sea, it also overlooks the Aral Sea, as it shares it with Uzbekistan.

Kazakhstan is a presidential republic led from 1991 to 2019 by Nursultan Nazarbaev. While maintaining a strong and privileged relationship with Russia, the country has developed a very pragmatic foreign policy over the years, which has kept cooperative and confrontational ties with other countries as well, including the United States, the European Union, and China. Due to its own history and geographical location, it cannot avoid having solid relations with Russia and China, but this has not kept it from embarking on a "multi-vector" foreign policy capable of holding multiple possibilities for discussion at the international level, including taking advantage of the forums offered by the many international and regional organizations of which it is a member.

In fact, since the year of its independence, Kazakhstan has joined the OSCE, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership and is also a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the United Nations and UNESCO since 1992, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Finally, it has joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has been a member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) since January 2015.

With great economic potential and endowed with vast mineral and energy riches, it is one of the world's leading exporters of hydrocarbons, and it also has significant coal and iron reserves. It is exactly due to these mineral riches that it has been able to build a series of partnerships and cooperation agreements with many Western countries, including Italy.

Italy, in fact, represents a strategic partner for Kazakhstan. According to leading economic sources, as of 2018 Italy would rank first among recipient countries for Kazakhstan's exports and third in terms of trade interchange, behind Russia and China. In such trade between the two countries, oil is the primary item. The sectors most affected by exports to Kazakhstan from Italy (which in the year 2019, before Covid 19 had reached a record 1,088 million euros) are mainly machinery, energy, and petrochemicals.