ASTANA. February 22. KAZINFORM KazEnergy Association is planning to enter the new National Council of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Chairman Timur Kulibayev announced at the Association members' meeting on Tuesday in Astana.

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) increases transparency over payments by companies to governments and to government-linked entities, as well as transparency over revenues by those host country governments. As of June 2011, EITI was implemented in 35 resource rich countries around the world. There are two forms of participation in the Initiative - as a Compliant country or a Candidate country. Kazakhstan received the status of Candidate country in 2010.

KazEnergy Association was founded on 5 November 2005. Currently, it consists of 58 companies and organizations.