ASTANA – The United Kingdom sees Kazakhstan as a partner in driving sustainable infrastructure growth, with British companies ready to bring their expertise to support the country’s ambitious development goals, said Stuart Senior, co-chair of the U.K. Government’s Department for Business and Trade Infrastructure Exports Initiative (IE:UK), in an interview with The Astana Times. 

The initiative unites businesses of all sizes under the Team U.K. consortium to compete for global infrastructure contracts and execute complex projects by leveraging their combined expertise across the entire supply chain. 

Senior visited Astana on Feb. 18 to attend the infrastructure roundtable organized by the British Embassy. The event kicked off the Build Together initiative, focused on infrastructure and architecture partnerships. It gathered more than 40 key delegates and featured nearly 10 business-to-business meetings, demonstrating mutual interest in joint projects and discussions in infrastructure development.

“We’ve opened up a lot of infrastructure opportunities. I think the first point is that there are a lot of cross-sector opportunities, and it will be interesting to see if we can have more of a joint working relationship,” said Senior, who also serves as a member of the supervisory board at Gleeds, a London-based global property and construction consultancy firm. 

“We’ve just heard from the U.K. organizations that there is a lot of interest from our private sector in working more in Kazakhstan as well. I think we are starting to find a framework within which we can all come together and work in greater consolidation,” he added. 

Senior highlighted cooperation with the Kazakh Ministry of Water and Irrigation as a starting point. At the roundtable, Kazakh officials pointed out the urgency of addressing gaps in water infrastructure, as climate change-related floods put an enormous strain on the system.   

“I think the primary area that we can help straight away is in the water alleviation and flood management. As a U.K. enterprise, we’ve got terrific expertise, very recently adapted and gained in Peru. They had a lot of problems with El Niño [a climate phenomenon marked by the warming of sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean] in 2017. It created a huge damage in the north of the country, and in the last five years, we have actually worked with the Peruvian government very closely together,” Senior said. 

U.K. and Peru established a project management office, bringing together a team of local Peruvian staff and experts from U.K. organizations. The main goal was to ensure that when El Niño returns—as it is expected to—the region is well-prepared, including enhancing forecasting capacity and putting flood management procedures in place. 

Stuart Senior and Assel Satubaldina in a conversation. Photo credit: Aida Dosbergenova/ The Astana Times

“I think our experience in Peru is identical, in many ways, to the opportunities and the needs of flood management and prevention in Kazakhstan. Nothing is absolutely the same, but there is a lot that can be replicated and brought here immediately,” he added. 

As for Kazakhstan, Senior said the process has to start with greater engagement. 

“Today is a wonderful period of engagement. I think the more we do that, the more we understand what the challenges are in Kazakhstan, and the more we understand how we can bring the British expertise to meet and assist you and support the resolution of those challenges,” he said. 

Attracting financing to infrastructure projects can be a challenge, but ensuring it is spent effectively is equally challenging.

“The work with U.K. export finance brings an opportunity to have funding brought into full end-to-end contracts as well, where we undertake not just the professional services, but we also undertake other aspects, contracting wise and operational management. That, in addition, brings us the opportunity to bring in finance from U.K. banks as well. I think there are certain U.K. banks that are interested in investing more in projects in Kazakhstan,” Senior said. 

The discussions build on a long-standing partnership between Kazakhstan and the U.K. 

The U.K. is one of Kazakhstan’s largest foreign direct investors, bringing more than $18 billion into the Kazakh economy. Both nations are keen to deepen bilateral cooperation, with plans to sign the Strategic Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. 

“These discussions are very good. I think we need to build on them positively. Sometimes, we have to be brave to take the next step. Trust is a big part of it all. The thing that the Kazakh people and ministries can rely upon is that we, as the U.K. enterprise, have got the record of delivery in many countries around the world. Trust goes hand in hand,” said Senior.