(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 15

By Nargiz Sadikhova – Trend:

Global coronavirus crisis and low oil prices bring major challenges to global trade, and will naturally affect trade relations between Finland and Kazakhstan, a representative of Finland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Trend .

The official said that currently Finland and Kazakhstan have well-established economic relations, although the trade numbers have been relatively low lately.

"The level of Finnish exports to Kazakhstan has remained steady during the past few years, while the imports from Kazakhstan to Finland has fluctuated," the official said.

In her words, since late 2018, the level of Kazakh imports to Finland has been significantly lower than the level of Finnish exports to Kazakhstan.

Thus, she said, Finnish exports to Kazakhstan amounted to 139.5 million euros in 2019, while the Kazakh exports to Finland amounted to 10.08 million euros.

"The global coronavirus crisis and low oil prices bring major challenges to global trade, and this will naturally affect the trade relations between Finland and Kazakhstan as well," the official said.

The official noted that the volume of Finnish exports to Kazakhstan was 11.8 percent lower in 1Q2020 than in 1Q2019, while the number volume Kazakh imports to Finland was 46 percent lower during the reporting period compared to 1Q2019.

"We are hoping that the trade numbers will pick up again once the situation starts to normalize," the MFA official said.

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