Together with minerals and nonprecious metals, leather accounted for the bulk of Kazakhstan’s $2 billion dollar exports to the European Union last year, the country’s deputy director of foreign economic relations department, Zaure Abdildina, said last week.

Speaking at the second meeting of the Kazakh-European subcommittee for trade and economic issues in the Kazakh capital of Astana, Abdildina said Kazakhstan's trade turnover with the European Union (EU) countries amounted to $3 billion in 2000, up 39.5 per cent on 1999’s figure. No figures for each sector were disclosed.