Almost $17 billion: that was trade between Italy and Kazakhstan in 2025, according to Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Trade and Integration, making Italy the country’s third-largest trading partner. On September 16 in Astana, officials and businesses from Italy, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan met to launch a platform meant to build on it, B5+Italy.
The idea was proposed by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. It follows the first Central Asia-Italy summit at leaders’ level, held in Astana in May 2025, where Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the five Central Asian presidents agreed to deepen cooperation on trade, investment, transport and energy. The new format complements the C5+1 political dialogue by giving companies a more direct role.
Politics first, then deals
Italian Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Maria Tripodi called the meeting “the beginning of a new era.” She said the aim was to “transform the political dialogue into investments, partnerships and new opportunities.” But she also put the burden on business. “It is the companies, in fact, that are subject to transform the political relationship into a more solid one,” she said.
Kazakh Trade and Integration Minister Arman Shakkaliyev pitched the region as one market. “Today, Central Asia is a market with a rapidly growing economy,” he said. A company could set up production in one country and still reach customers and supply chains in several neighbors. He pointed to the Kazakh-Italian Trade House, which opened in Almaty earlier this year, as a possible channel for wider links between Italian firms and the region.
The push is coming from companies too. Marco Beretta, president of the Italian-Kazakh Trade Association, told The Astana Times that three years of work on Italy-Kazakhstan ties changed after Meloni’s visit last May: “we understood that a much wider scope of work can be executed.” His association now wants to grow its Kazakh-Italian business forum into a Central Asian platform, with Kazakhstan as its base.
The catch in the trade figures
Trade reached $9.79 billion in January-July this year. Of that, $9 billion was Kazakh exports to Italy and $789.6 million was imports. Look at the split, and Shakkaliyev’s warning makes sense. High volumes are not enough, he said, because commodities dominate the trade.
Kazakhstan wants to sell processed and higher-value goods instead. It estimates an extra $307.5 million of export potential in the Italian market, in metallurgy, petrochemicals, food, chemicals and machinery. Tripodi offered Italian engineering, machinery and industrial technology in return. “We need to create added value,” Beretta said.
He described one project under discussion, a logistics hub in Kazakhstan paired with local production, including sustainable aviation fuel. Tripodi said Italian companies are already well established in oil and gas and want to move into renewables, critical minerals and energy transition. She described a region of around 80 million, relatively young people.
Roads to Europe
Transport took up much of the agenda. Kazakhstan says it has invested around $35 billion in transport and logistics over the past 15 years, and it promotes the Middle Corridor, formally the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route. The route links China and Central Asia with Europe through the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus and Türkiye. “We want Italy to be at the same time the driver of this new road to Europe and also the protagonist of its realization,” Tripodi said. “Our companies are ready to contribute.”
