In Dalian on 23 June, Bektenov met executives of Guangzhou Automobile Group, the battery maker CATL, the engineering group CISDI and others, alongside the AI-infrastructure talks. The automotive piece is the clearest. GAC plans to move from simply distributing its cars in Kazakhstan to assembling them locally, with a reported 17,000 vehicles to be built in 2026 to 2028, in combustion and hybrid versions.
That shift is the one Kazakhstan asks of every partner. It is the same demand it makes of the EU on critical minerals and of everyone on processing: do not just sell us the finished product or buy our raw one, build the factory here. Local assembly brings jobs, tax, technology transfer and a manufacturing base, in place of a showroom for imports.
For China it is a logical next step. Kazakhstan is the Belt and Road’s land bridge and already its largest trade partner in the region, with record bilateral trade near $48.7 billion last year and decades of investment behind it. Moving assembly into the country deepens the relationship and plants Chinese supply chains, in cars, batteries and engineering, on Kazakh soil, closer to both the Russian and the European markets.
Kazakhstan asks every partner the same thing: do not sell us the product, build the factory here.
The catch is the one this desk returns to: a meeting is not a factory. Bektenov’s Dalian round produced discussions and intentions across automotive, batteries, coal chemicals and data centres. How much becomes built capacity, and on whose terms the technology transfers, is the test. Kazakhstan can insist on local content while the suitors are many. The open question is whether it presses that advantage or settles for assembly kits and a ribbon.