ASTANA, September 20 — Government officials and business representatives from Italy and the five Central Asian states gathered in the Kazakh capital on September 16 to launch the B5+Italy platform, a new format designed to convert political engagement into investment and industrial cooperation. The forum drew participants from Italy, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Discussions centred on connectivity, sustainable growth and opportunities for companies operating across the region.
The meeting follows the first Central Asia-Italy summit at leaders’ level, held in Astana in May 2025, when Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the presidents of the five Central Asian states agreed to deepen cooperation across trade, investment, transport, energy and other sectors. The platform, proposed by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, is intended to complement the political dialogue in the C5+1 format by giving businesses a more direct role in shaping economic cooperation.
From political dialogue to investment
Italian Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Maria Tripodi framed the new format as a mechanism to give the political track an economic dimension. “We consider that today’s meeting is important because it is the beginning of a new era,” Tripodi told forum participants. “We want to transform the political dialogue into investments, partnerships and new opportunities for our countries.” She added that companies themselves bear the burden of turning political relationships into something more durable, investing time and effort to do so.
Kazakh Minister of Trade and Integration Arman Shakkaliyev said the forum gives Italian companies a chance to approach Central Asia increasingly as a regional market rather than five isolated economies. “Today, Central Asia is a market with a rapidly growing economy,” he said.
“For Italian businesses, today’s forum represents an opportunity to work with the entire region and to expand production and market presence across several countries simultaneously.” Shakkaliyev said the region should be viewed as an interconnected economic space where companies can establish production in one country while reaching consumers and supply chains across several neighbouring markets. He pointed to the Kazakh-Italian Trade House that opened in Almaty earlier this year, saying it could serve not only bilateral commerce but wider links between Italian companies and Central Asia.
The trade numbers behind the format
Italy was Kazakhstan’s third-largest trading partner last year, with bilateral trade reaching almost $17 billion in 2025, according to Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Trade and Integration. Trade reached $9.79 billion in January-July this year, including $9 billion in Kazakh exports to Italy and $789.6 million in imports. Shakkaliyev said maintaining high trade volumes alone was not enough, pointing to the large role of commodities in the current structure of bilateral commerce.
Kazakhstan is seeking to expand exports of higher-value goods and estimates it has an additional $307.5 million in export potential on the Italian market, particularly in metallurgy, petrochemicals, food products, chemicals and machinery. He cited opportunities in agriculture, chemicals, manufacturing and industrial cooperation, while Tripodi emphasised Italian expertise in engineering, machinery and advanced industrial technologies.
Marco Beretta, president of the Italian-Kazakh Trade Association, said the leaders’ summit in May 2025 convinced businesses that cooperation could be expanded beyond the two countries. “In the last three years, we have been working very hard in order to promote collaboration between Italy and Kazakhstan,” Beretta told The Astana Times.
“But after the visit of our prime minister last year in May, we understood that a much wider scope of work can be executed.” He described Central Asia as an increasingly important economic link for Europe and said the expansion toward a five-country regional format represented a significant shift. Beretta said the association now wants to expand its Kazakh-Italian business forum into a broader Central Asian platform while keeping Kazakhstan as its base.
Transport and the Middle Corridor
Transport and logistics featured prominently at the forum. Kazakhstan, which has invested around $35 billion in this area in the past 15 years, has promoted its position along transcontinental trade routes, particularly the Middle Corridor across the Caspian Sea. The Middle Corridor, formally known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, links China and Central Asia with Europe through the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus and Türkiye.
The next test for the B5+Italy platform is whether the business track can move beyond forum declarations and into concrete projects. Watch for follow-up meetings and whether the Kazakh-Italian Trade House in Almaty becomes the operational hub for a wider regional push.
