Kazakhstan, Astana, Dec. 14 / Trend's D. Mukhtarov /
Kazakhstan's oil and gas complex is the engine for the entire economy and contributes to the development of other industries, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said at a meeting devoted to the 21st anniversary of Kazakhstan's independence.
"We were to create modern, efficient oil, gas and mining sectors in economy," he said. "We have tackled this. Today, we use commodity revenues to build a new economy of the future."
He added that there is a steady growth in the share of the oil and gas industry in the country's GDP, which rose from 3.7 percent in 1997 to 14.7 percent in 2006 and 25.8 percent in 2011.
"We have diversified our sales markets and fixed our positions, thereby reducing dependence on one direction sale of our products," Nazarbayev said.