Economic and Higher Education Partnership of Hungary and Kazakhstan

Kinga Magdolna Mandel,Anargul Belgibayeva

doi:10.52885/pah.v1i2.73

Abstract

The aim of our research was to describe, compare, and analyze the development of business and educational co-operation between Kazakhstan and Hungary over the past 19 years. The research was prompted by the university-level co-operation between the two countries that star ted in 2018, which was made possible by the strategic partnership that is the topic of the present article. We started from the hypothesis that both business and educational co-operation has developed linearly and significantly during the last 19 years. Our research methodology was based on gathering and analyzing secondary macroeconomic, trade, and educational co-operation data in the period between 2011 and 2020. The data were obtained from publications, national offices (statistical, commerce, and education), and international bodies (like TempusPublic Foundation, Eurostat, International Monetary Fund [IMF], and the World Bank). In this paper, we intend to link the main political, social, and macroeconomic endowments with business and educational developments of partnership in the two countries, trying to map out prospects for co-operation. One conclusion is that, although in the political communications of the two countries we were able to identify significant governmental efforts on both sides to support and enforce economic and educational co-operation, the data indicate a decrease in the size of business investments. At the same time, however, the educational co-operation between the two parties continues to develop further.

Highlights

The co-operation between the two countries has been dated to 1992 when Hungary was among the first countries to recognize Kazakhstan’s independence (Hungary, Kazakhstan ‘strategic partners,’ 2020)
The most surprising finding in this secondary data analysis was that according to their declarations, the two governments appear to invest a lot of effort into building and strengthening the strategic partnership between the two countries—by means of annual and new economic and trade agreements,the Hungarian exports to Kazakhstan still have fallen by 50% between 2013 and 2019, and Kazakh exports declined even more, to 5% of their previous level, in between 2010 and 2019
Plenta (2016) comes to similar conclusion regarding the EU countries and Kazakh ties; he states that we can see the difference between declared ambitions and the real situation

Summary

Introduction

The co-operation between the two countries has been dated to 1992 when Hungary was among the first countries to recognize Kazakhstan’s independence (Hungary, Kazakhstan ‘strategic partners,’ 2020). We could only track just a couple of articles regarding the ties between the two countries One of these is a cultural-anthropological and genetic study evaluating the common background shared by the Hungarians (Magyars) in Hungary and the Madjar population in Kazakhstan (Bíró et al, 2009). Another study analyzed the two-level game of Visegrád countries and Kazakhstan It stated, that the EU’s member states, among them the Visegrád ones (Hungary being one of them), focus on developing trade and economic relations with Kazakhstan, without entering into the sensitive issues of democracy promotion and human rights. That the EU’s member states, among them the Visegrád ones (Hungary being one of them), focus on developing trade and economic relations with Kazakhstan, without entering into the sensitive issues of democracy promotion and human rights Those are left for the EU’s institutions to deal with (Plenta, 2016)

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Conclusion