President Tokayev suggests combining stock exchanges in Kazakhstan

During his national address in front of members of both houses of parliament, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev suggested that the two current stock exchanges – Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) and Astana International Exchange (AIX) – be combined into one entity.

«There are two stock exchanges in Kazakhstan, which often duplicate and even compete with each other. It’s too much for our financial system. To increase the capacity and attractiveness of our market, the cabinet should prepare a plan on how to combine the potential of the two stock exchanges under unified governance,» the president said.

KASE was established in 1993 with headquarters in Almaty. So far, the platform is ranked second in the CIS in terms of the market value of listed stocks. For instance, the representative list of the KASE index includes shares of nine companies: Bank CenterCredit, Halyk Bank, Kcell, KEGOC, KazMunayGas, Kaspi.kz, Kazatomprom, Kazakhtelecom and KazTransOil.

KASE also runs a foreign currency section and a section of foreign stock KASE Global. In 2022, the stock exchange reported a sharp increase in client accounts (+300,000). About 14,000 of them were involved in at least one deal. As a result, the total number of accounts on the platform reached one million.

AIX has operated within the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC) since 2017. The platform’s day-to-day operations are based on English law and regulated by the AIFC. In 2023, Polymetal International, one of the biggest producers of gold and silver in the world, chose AIX for listing after its re-domiciliation to the AIFC from the British island of Jersey.