Astana to host CICA science conference

    On Friday, a conference called -- CICA: from a concept to building security architecture in Asia, will be held in Astana, tied to the 20th anniversary of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, Kazinform said.
    Apart from the upcoming conference, other major foreign policy events were announced at yesterday's weekly press briefing at the Foreign Ministry by Spokesman Altai Abibullayev. First, these are a working visit to Kazakhstan on part of the Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade of Finland Alexander Stubb, who will share in the meeting of the Kazakh-Finnish Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation.
    Kazakhstan's Environment Minister Mr. Kapparov is attending the commission meeting, Kazpravda.kz said.
    Stubb is also meeting with Prime Minister Serik Akhmetov, Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Industry and New Technologies Aset Isekeshev, chairman of the National Bank Grigory Marchenko, Board Chairman of "Samruk-Kazyna" Umirzak Shukeyev, mayors of Astana and Almaty - Imangali Tasmagambetov and Akhmetzhan Yesimov.
    The visit will focus on the current situation and outlook, priority areas for economic cooperation between the two countries. The Finnish Minister will take part in a Kazakhstan - Finland business forum in Astana and Almaty, give a lecture at KIMEP University and Nazarbaev University, and meet with the cycling team "Astana".
    Together with Stubb an 80-strong business delegation is arriving - representatives of Finnish companies in innovations, energy, technology, mining, construction, education, other areas.
    Late this week, Tirana (Albania) is hosting a fall session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, to which a Kazakh delegation is going, led by chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Defense and Security Ikram Adyrbekov, who is to make a presentation there and hold a series of bilateral meetings with his counterparts, CA-News wrote.