Belt and Road Initiative benefits Kazakhstan: Nazarbayev

First president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said here on Tuesday that the central Asian country supports the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as it is beneficial to the country's development.

Nazarbayev made the remarks at the Fourth Meeting of Speakers of Eurasian Countries' Parliaments (MSEAP) held in the Kazakh capital.

He said the number of containers that were being transported from the Pacific Ocean to Europe through Kazakhstan and Russia were increasing year by year, which means "Kazakhstan has become a transit country effectively connecting Asia and Europe, the Northern and Southern part of Eurasia."

Proposed by China in 2013 to promote trans-continental connectivity for common growth and shared benefits, the BRI involves infrastructure development, trade and investment facilitation and people-to-people exchanges.

Kazakhstan has newly built and renovated 15,000 km of roads and railways in a very short period of time, which helps the land-locked nation connect to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and the Gulf, the first president said.

The meeting kicked off on Monday with the theme of "Greater Eurasia: Dialogue, Trust, Partnership." Delegations from 65 countries and 14 international organizations participated in the event.