AIX reports threefold growth year-on-year

The Astana International Exchange (AIX), a trading platform within the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC), has reported its results for 2023. Over the past twelve months, the total volume of trade at the exchange has grown more than threefold from $173 million to $582 million. The stock market, in turn, has doubled in size and reached $130 million in total.

The exchange also pointed out the AIX Qazaq index, which includes stocks of many Kazakhstani companies, has grown by 28.37%, while the number of opened brokerage accounts amounted to 1.5 million. Currently, 37 brokerage companies from Kazakhstan, China and Europe are registered at the exchange.

Since 2017, when the AIX was established, it has raised about $4.2 billion with the help of debt instruments and $365 million through equity instruments. Transactions with shares of Polymetal, a gold mining company, accounted for 31.1% of the entire trade volume, which was the highest rate last year, followed by KazMunayGas (30.7%) and Kazatomprom (18.2%).

In September 2023, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said in his address to the nation that the two stock exchanges were too much for Kazakhstan as they often duplicated functions of each other and might be combined with no negative consequences. After that, some high-ranking officials talked about possible scenarios of such combining on several occasions. The final decision is expected to be made within the first quarter of this year.

In 2023, Russian Polymetal, which has been listed at the AIX since 2019, split its business into two parts: Russian and international businesses. The latter was redomiciliated from Jersey to the AIFC last year. Another Russian company Fix Price has also completed redomiciliation from Cyprus to Astana; the company’s shares are now traded on the AIX. In mid-January 2024, Dodo Pizza also announced its intention to leave Cyprus and move to Kazakhstan, although it hasn’t yet revealed any details about the move.