"It is a priority for us to have our own automobile industry," he told an Adam Smith Institute conference.
The former Soviet central Asian republic has already started assembling 114-passenger diesel buses in a vehicle repair plant in Shymkent, and aims to produce 1,000 a year by 1995, he said. It will also make 37-seat buses there.
To service its rail network, which it is enhancing by improving links between Europe and China, Kazakhstan plans to found a joint venture with the eastern German firm Deutsche Wagonbau AG and Turkey's Tuvasas to build railway carriage, he said.
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