#Kazakhstan health-care Minister meets EU health commissioner

During the meeting, Minister Birtanov noted that in his recent State-of-the-Nation Address President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev paid utmost attention to the quality of medical services, raising wages of medical workers, the need to increase investment into the primary health care sector and ensure food safety. He added that right now Kazakhstan is looking into the possibility of creating a new authorized body which will ensure food safety and in that respect the country is interested to learn from the EU experience.

Vytenis Andriukaitis, in turn, reminded that earlier the EU and Kazakhstan had established partnership and signed the agreements on healthcare. The EU Commissioner also lauded progress in Kazakhstan-EU partnership and expressed hope for further strengthening and expansion of co-operation. Also, Andriukaitis emphasized Kazakhstan's key role among Central Asian countries in achieving universal health coverage of the population and the need to step up investments into primary health care.