Port of Ravenna ready to contribute to construction of Aktau port's facilities

Italy's port of Ravenna is ready to participate in the construction of transport and logistic facilities in Aktau Seaport free economic zone (on the Caspian shore in Mangistau oblast of Kazakhstan).

"The instant we saw Aktau Seaport project we have decided to join its implementation," president of Ravenna port administration Giuseppe Parello told Interfax-Kazakhstan on the sidelines of a Thursday seminar that covered strategic cooperation between Italy and Kazakhstan in the oil and gas industry.

"We are inclined to jointly construct transport and logistic facilities of Aktau Seaport free economic zone with a memorandum inked with port of Ravenna," director of Aktau Seaport FEZ Zinulla Kaziyev told Interfax-Kazakhstan.

"But the project is at the negotiation stage at the moment," he indicated.

Kaziyev says the port of Ravenna has interesting experience of clustering industrial areas directly within the port.

"The conditions in Kazakhstan slightly differ, however we feel interested in the experience of interaction between the port and industrial areas," he emphasized.

Kaziyev also added that the administration of port of Ravenna had displayed interest in the Kazakh free economic area within the cooperation between Aktau Seaport FEZ and Italy's state-owned Simest that promotes Italian products outside the European Union.

Moreover, a delegation of Italian businessmen and investors are expected to visit Aktau in February-March 2009 within the memorandum sealed between Aktau Seaport FEZ and Simest in spring 2008, he said.

According to Kaziyev, the FEZ and Simest will facilitate startup of manufactures with Italian capital at the FEZ on the area of 150 hectares.

"Simest is picking companies inside Italia who want to launch manufacture on the Caspian shore in Kazakhstan," he said.

"We are interested in Italian companies given their experience in the heavy and exact metallurgy, know-how, technologies," explained head of Aktau Seaport FEZ.

Meanwhile deputy chair of Caspian Civic-Oriented Entrepreneurial Corporation (COEC) Samat Sarkytbayev said at the seminar that the COEC offered Italian companies four investment projects in Aktau (administrative center of Mangistau region). Cost of projects that must be accomplished in 2009 and 2010 varies between $6 and $50 ml.

"We offer Italian businessmen and investors involvement in the projects of a support base for dredging fleet, flour milling plant, plant of biological products, SME industrial fleet," he said.

In particular Sarkytbayev says the plant of biological products for the oil and gas industry costs $6 ml.

In turn, adviser of Kazakh ambassador to Italy Yerbolat Sembayev told the seminar that cooperation between Kazakhstan and Italy focused on the oil and gas sector with involvement of major companies thus far.

Simest is an authorized agency of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Commerce to spur and bolster Italian companies outside the EU.

Port of Ravenna, one of biggest industrial and trade ports in Italy, handles 27 ml of dry cargo annually.

The port in the Adriatic Sea is a 12-km channel with industrial areas of chemical, metallurgical and processing industries as well as dockyards around.

Aktau port on Mangyshlak Peninsula in the Caspian Sea is vital for Kazakhstan as it is the only international seaport of the country.