IMF to open regional office in Kazakhstan

As the office of Kazakhstan’s prime minister reported, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is planning to open in Almaty a regional center for Caucasus, Central Asia and Mongolia.

This statement followed the negotiations between Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov and Nicolas Blancher, head of the IMF Mission for Kazakhstan.

According to Smailov, the country’s economy continues to demonstrate positive results. Over the period from January to April, it grew by 5%. In 2022, Kazakhstan reported $28 billion of foreign direct investments, a record high for the past decade.

He also added that the cabinet is conducting a large-scale assessment of the country’s financial sector. This year, the country developed new tax and budget codes that are aimed at cutting the non-oil deficit to 5% of the GDP. This is a necessary move to reboot fiscal policy in the country.

«We are going to increase currency assets of the National Fund to $100 billion by 2030,» Smailov highlighted.

He also said that Kazakhstan is gradually switching to alternative sources of energy while businesses have been increasing their energy efficacy rate.

According to Blanchet, Kazakhstan is doing quite well in terms of strengthening its economic policy, budget and financial sectors.

«We’ve seen significant economic activity this year. I’d like to note that Kazakhstan’s government and the National Bank of the country were quite successful in taking inflation under control. Kazakhstan has struggled with different shocks over the past three years and as we can see, the country has managed to cope with all these challenges,» he said.

Blanchet also noted that IMF is going to further support Kazakhstan’s efforts in the sphere of development reforms.

In April 2023, IMF improved its forecast for Kazakhstan’s GDP. According to a report by the fund, in 2024 the country’s GDP will grow by 4.9%.

In January 2023, Kazakhstan reported its economy grew by 5.6%. In 2022, the country’s GDP grew by 3.1%, including the growth of the real economy by 3.2% and the service sector by 2.5%. Last year, Kazakhstan reported inflation of 20.3%. Food product prices surged by 25.3%, non-food product prices by 19.4% and paid service prices by 14.1%.