On April 18-19, 2022, representatives of “QazTrade JSC”- N. Kulbatyrov and M. Sirotina took part in the sixth meeting of the Central Asia Working Group (CAWG) in Tashkent, during which the issue of using geographical indications as a tool for export promotion was considered.
The introduction of such an instrument has been considered in Kazakhstan over the past two years. In mid-April of this year, the relevant bill was submitted to the Senate for consideration. Training at the technical level is carried out by the National Expert Working Group on the basis of “QazTrade” JSC, which includes representatives of all interested state bodies and organizations. The EU project “CANDY V”, together with the Kazakhstan Association of the Sugar Food and Processing Industry, trained the participants of this working group and jointly selected about 30 types of products with the potential of geographical indications. Based on the results of the work, Almaty’s aport (an apple variety) was selected as a pilot project.
“QazTrade JSC”, as an export promotion organization, sees the great potential of this tool and plans to launch consultations on its use as early as next year.
For reference: currently, in Kazakhstan, geographical indications are protected as appellations of origin of goods, such as Saryagash mineral water, Lepsy honey, Bulaevskoye butter, etc. However, the use of this kind of protection has not become widespread due to high requirements for the implementation of the entire production cycle products at their place of origin. To obtain protection as a geographical indication, only one such step would be sufficient.