President Tokayev appoints Kazakhstan’s new representative to WTO

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has appointed Aset Irgaliyev, the former assistant to the president for economic affairs, as Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the WTO and International Economic Organizations.

By the president’s same edict, Zhanar Aitzhan, who held this position before, was dismissed. 

Irgaliyev had worked in the president’s administration since September last year. Over his career, he also worked in Samruk Kazyna’s board of directors, the state economic commission under the president of Kazakhstan, the board of directors of the Baiterek holding and the Supreme Council for Reforms under the president. Since December 2023, he’s served as deputy head of the Investment Promotion Council.

Aitzhan is an experienced Kazakhstani diplomat as she rendered the duties of a Kazakhstani representative in the United Nations Office and International Organizations in Geneva before joining the WTO. Kazakhstan joined the WTO in July 2015 after 19 years of negotiations. During the official ceremony of joining the trading organization, Ex-President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said that the country would focus on its economic diversification and reduction of its dependency on raw materials. At the time, he also noted that Kazakhstan’s economy had become stronger and more open over the years of negotiations. The country’s GDP per capita grew by 18 times, reaching the standards of Central and Eastern Europe.