In his State of the Nation address, delivered in early September and titled “Economic Course for a Fair Kazakhstan,” President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev spoke of the need to diversify the economy, with an emphasis on industry, as a way to develop the economy. which is the ninth largest country in the world, but geographically sandwiched between Russia and China. The Kazakh president even went so far as to set the stable economic growth rate deemed necessary for the ambitions to improve the lives of the population (about 20 million inhabitants) at 6-7% per year, but the hottest point of the speech was related to the proposal to build a nuclear power plant, as part of the global energy transition. A referendum will be held before the final decision, which shows how sensitive the nuclear issue is in that Central Asian country because of the explosions that took place in the Soviet era.
In his speech, Tokayev spoke of Kazakhstan’s commitment to sustainability and environmental protection, underlining that “in the long run, a global transition to clean energy is inevitable”. Plans to increase renewable energy capacity and develop hydrogen production were discussed, as was the issue of building a nuclear power plant.
Kazakhstan, a major producer of oil and natural gas, continues to feel the need for new energy sources. In this sense, building a nuclear power plant makes as much sense as the option already made by the United Arab Emirates and soon to be made by Saudi Arabia, two major exporters of hydrocarbons. But for the Kazakh people, the word nuclear is closely associated with the Semipalatinsk polygon, in the northeast of the country, where Stalin tested the Soviet Union’s first atomic bomb in 1949 and where more than 400 nuclear tests were conducted until 1989, and then nuclear power. , initially on the surface and later underground. The decision to close the polygon was one of the most emblematic measures of Nursultan Nazarbayev, father of independence in 1991 and first president of Kazakhstan. To this day, there are victims of radiation and many associations in the region of Semei, the nearest town, dedicated to telling the story of the tragedy that took place there during the Cold War.
Significantly, Kazakhstan also decided to renounce the nuclear arsenal it had inherited from the USSR and made the end of nuclear weapons one of the banners of its diplomacy, both under Nazarbayev and now with Tokayev.
For example, you can observe the concern of the president, who is also deepening democracy, to let the citizens speak, so that the benefits of the nuclear power plant are discussed and fears are met.
Major economies such as Japan, which even suffered from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, more recently, the accident in Fukushima, and France are betting on nuclear energy, claiming that it is safe and more effective than others in the quest for a carbon-neutral energy alternative energies, such as solar energy. or wind, but Germany, on the contrary, has decided to close its last two factories this year.
In the case of Kazakhstan, the fact that the country is the world’s largest producer of uranium, essential for nuclear energy production, played an important role in the presidential proposal and should also count for many people in their yes or no votes.
Regarding this State of the Nation speech, the Kazakh ambassador to Portugal, Daulet Batrasjev, says that “the content and nature of the new message fully correspond to the logic of presidential reforms. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev consistently implements a strategic course focused on reform. it applies both to changes in the relations in the executive power system, in the center and in the regions, as well as the introduction of new measures in the areas of tax benefits, legal regulation and interaction with investors.
Adds the diplomat, who “draws special attention to the proposal of the head of state to submit the issue of nuclear power plant construction, which is being discussed in society, to a republican referendum. This confirms the President’s commitment to the principles of a “Listening State” and a “Fair Kazakhstan”. cover areas and form a single systemic complex of socio-economic reforms.
Source: DN
