News

During the first three months of the current year, Kazakhstani exporters reported a record surge in exports thanks to favorable prices for commodities on the global market.

Kursiv Research is presenting this year’s first review of Kazakhstani exports to identify the key points of growth. Over the period from January to March, Kazakhstani exports grew by 65.8% and reached $19.1 billion – a five-year record. Energy products became key drivers of that surge. They have been on their high since March due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Stable oil price and sulfur

Oil is the key export...

The relative of the ex-president of Kazakhstan Kairat Boranbayev, who is currently accused of embezzlement, failed to make a deal with McDonald’s in Russia. The information about the potential deal was announced by The Bell. However, in the late evening of May 19, the company revealed that it instead reached a deal with Alexander Govor, the chain’s franchisee in Russia.

According to the deal, Govor, who has been cooperating with McDonald’s since 2015, is going to buy all the chain’s portfolio in Russia. The businessman is going to develop the chain under a new brand.

«The deal must be approved...

In the first quarter of this year, Kazakhstan exported goods to Turkey for $1.2 billion and imported goods for $236.3 million. The turnover between the two countries during that period reached $1.5 billion, according to the Committee of State Revenues under the Ministry of Finance.

The vast majority of goods Turkey imported from Kazakhstan over the first three months are fuel and energy products (70.7%) at the cost of $885 million. The second most popular group of goods Kazakhstan exported to Turkey were metal and metal goods (25.9%) at the value of $324 million.

However, Turkey is also interested in...

The Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market in Kazakhstan has issued a new rule concerning IT security in banks.

«Amid the growing threat of cyber attacks we have to strengthen security systems in the IT area in order to protect private data about clients, their accounts and financial transactions,» the agency said in a statement.

As the agency reported, the new rule requires commercial banks to put more efforts into IT security. Also, the document sets clear boundaries of responsibility between different banking departments that are key parts of the IT security system.

Moreover, the new rule...

McDonald’s built a huge business in Russia. However, after the invasion of Ukraine, the American company announced it is leaving Russia. Now the business community in the country expects that the chain might be purchased by somebody else. According to The Bell, the structures affiliated with Kazakhstani billionaire Kairat Boranbayev might be interested in a deal with McDonald’s over its business in Russia. As a result, the chain will be able to continue working under a new brand.

The «Regional Network of Catering Enterprises» (LLC SPP), which Boranbayev fully controls, runs McDonald’s restaurants in the Sverdlovsk, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Tyumen...

According to Ms. Azhar Giniyat, health minister in Kazakhstan, the country spent about $2 billion over 2020-2021.

In 2020, the government allocated $586 million for the fight against COVID. About $458 million was spent on additional payments to health workers, and $65 million was spent on acquiring drugs and personal protective equipment. Those medical workers who helped people during the pandemic received $46.5 million in payments in total. An additional $11.6 million was spent on ventilators.

In 2021, Kazakhstan allocated about $1.3 billion in an effort to stop the COVID from spreading. The largest part of this money, $961.2 million...

Karazhanbasmunay, an oil-producing company in Kazakhstan, has asked its employees to make sure they are sober while at work.

According to the official notice published on the company’s website, Karazhanbasmunay is pursuing a healthy and safe environment for its employees and will carry zero tolerance for alcohol, drugs and psychotropic substances at work.

The company said that its security service reported several cases when employees came to work drunk even though the company has always fought against this.

«The analysis of data shows that the vast majority of those who broke the rules are employees of our contractors,» the company’s...

As the Russian outlet RBK reported, Renault’s assets in Russia now belong to the Russian government.

«Renault Group has agreed to give the Russian Federation and the government of Moscow its assets in Russia; we’ve signed the agreement,» the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade said.

As a result, the government of Moscow is going to own 100% of Renault Russia’s stocks. Another asset, a 67.69% share of AvtoVAZ, is going to fall under the control of the Central Research and Development Automobile and Engine Institute (NAMI), while Rostech will keep the rest of the AvtoVAZ’s stocks.

The principal point...

Arystanbek Mukhamediuly, former minister of culture in Kazakhstan and the current head of the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan has published his video appeal to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. The ex-minister reminded the president about his merits to the country, said that his only goal is to contribute to the prosperity of Kazakhstan and asked to stop inspections in the museum.

As Mukhamediuly noted, several years ago there was an incident with the movie “Fenix.” The government allocated significant funds for the film production but its director Talgad Zhanybekov embezzled about $3 million. He was arrested and later acknowledged...

Kairat Satybaldy won’t be let free until June 13, according to Ulan Sarkulov, deputy head of Kazakhstan’s Anti-Corruption Agency.

«The investigation is still ongoing. We have to perform some expert examinations, so investigative actions are in the progress. As a result, yesterday the Nur-Sultan court approved the extension of the detention of Kairat Satybaldy in custody until June 13,» said Sarkulov.

Kairat Satybaldy was detained on March 13. According to the Anti-Corruption Agency he is accused of abuse of power and embezzlement of a huge amount from Kazakhtelecom. On March 15 he was arrested for two months by the court.

Kazakhstan is going to ban exports of white and cane sugar for six months, according to the order of the country’s Ministry of Agriculture.

«We plan to impose a six-month-long embargo on white and cane sugar exports from the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The Ministry of Agriculture should inform the Eurasian Economic Commission about the embargo in the appropriate manner,» the ministry said in a statement.

Among those agencies which are going to implement the order is the State Inspection Committee in the Agroindustrial Complex under the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Revenues Committee. The order must...

The holding Samruk-Kazyna which runs almost all national companies in Kazakhstan is aimed at preventing its companies from falling under international sanctions. To achieve this goal, the company’s internal compliance service examines any agreement that the holding’s members are going to sign, according to Dauren Akshalov, head of the compliance service in Samruk-Kazyna.

As the official noted, the service is implementing a wide range of tasks and the task of preventing the risk of secondary sanctions is one of them.

«This is sanctions compliance. When we are going to sign a contract, we have to make sure that a potential...

According to Erulan Zhamaubayev, minister of finance the government is going to allocate about $36.8 million to conduct the country-wide referendum. The main goal of the plebiscite is to know what people think about the amendments to the Constitution of Kazakhstan.

«We are going to allocate $36,817,600 from the state budget to cover costs of the upcoming constitutional referendum. The final figures were given to us by the Central Election Commission. The government has taken a respective decision and the funds will be allocated,» Zhamaubayev said.

On May 5, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the law on amendments to the Constitutional...

According to Forbes Kazakhstan, Dariga Nazarbayeva is back on the list of 50 richest businessmen in Kazakhstan. The daughter of the first country’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev is ranked 13th with a fortune of $584 million.

Dariga Nazarbayeva was on the Forbes Kazakhstan List twice in 2012 and 2013. She was also ranked 13th at that time, although her fortune back then was bigger – $593 and $595 million respectively.

Nazarbayeva and her son Nurali Aliyev (26th in the rating) own Europe Plus Kazakhstan. Through this company, they also control shares in Radiocity radio station and NTK TV channel. Among other...

According to news reports from Baikonur Cosmodrome, local authorities detained Benjamin Rich from the U.K and Alina Tseliupa from Belarus as they had tried to penetrate the closed area near Site No. 112 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They were charged with unsanctioned entry to a guarded site, an administrative offense that was punished with a fine of about $74, and driven out of town.

The information about the incident went viral when Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, a space agency in Russia, posted the news on Telegram. According to Rogozin, both foreigners have been put in custody while...

More than 15,000 Kazakhstanis, who work in the non-alcohol beverage industry may lose their jobs because of the shortage of sugar in the country, according to the association.

Now the organization is trying to catch the attention of the government to the risks that the entire industry currently faces. Many Kazakhstani sugar producers can’t keep up with the demand. They sell sugar by limited parties and only to those who have made a full payment while many beverage producers struggle with a lack of liquidity. At the same time, sugar prices are going up. For example, over the past several...

I’ve always pursued an atmosphere of trust around myself and I am doing so because of several reasons.

First, trust is the very foundation for my business. My clients trust me because they give our company their money, often quite a significant part of their savings. If I lose their trust, I lose my business. This lesson I’ve learned since the very start of my career as an entrepreneur.

Second, as a businessman and head of a big company, I do not doubt that there are loads of benefits when people you work with trust you. People, who work in...

A private bailiff has called out a distrained property of Azia Avto in Ust-Kamenogorsk from an auction. The auction was initiated to sell the production site of the company and pay off its debt to Jusan Bank. The auction was canceled when the court received a letter of complaint from Anatoly Balushkin, a founder of Azia Avto.

According to data from a bailiff, the starting price of the manufacturing site was about $11.8 million. To take part in the auction its participants were also obliged to pay $594,347 as a security deposit.

The authorities cited Balushkin’s letter of complaint as...

In the past several years, companies that specialize in delivering goods from IKEA shops in Russia to Kazakhstan, where IKEA has no official shops, became so popular that these companies started to open big shops where every product they sell was from IKEA. On March 4, IKEA suspended the work of its shops in Russia because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As a result, Kazakhstani businesses that brought IKEA products to Kazakhstan from Novosibirsk, Omsk, Ufa and Samara now have to find alternative sources of similar goods.

In fact, Kazakhstani services that deliver IKEA goods stopped accepting orders right...

As the press service of the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructural Development reported, Kazakhstani authorities have finished the investigation into the plane crash that occurred on December 27, 2019.

The final report on the results of the investigation was coordinated with the Dutch Safety Board and the Interstate Aviation Committee.

«Our commission found out that the incident with Bek Air airline’s plane resulted from asymmetrical damage to the plane’s wings bearing capacity during its attempt to take off. As a result, the plane crashed a moment after its takeoff; under its own inertia the plane kept moving and hit a...

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan wants the amendments to the Constitution to be approved by the plebiscite. He’s made this statement today during the meeting of the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan.

The president noted that the amendments are going to be applied to one-third of the Constitution. These amendments have already been sent to the Constitutional Council which has to review them.

Throughout the history of modern Kazakhstan, there was only one referendum in 1995, when the current Constitution was adopted.

«We have a constitutional law on a national referendum which has never been applied in practice even...

In this op-ed Timur Turlov, СЕО of Freedom Holding Corp. shares his vision of why it is so important that the National Bank continues to take relevant actions in the future.

On Monday the National Bank of Kazakhstan raised the base rate from 13.50% to 14.00%. That is the sixth time the regulator has raised the rate over the past ten months. Last July the base rate was at 9.00%.

The regulator’s decision is based on standard assumptions. First, the inflation rate in Kazakhstan is still growing. In March, consumer prices soared by 12.0% while food inflation reached 15.0%. The...

Bio labs in Kazakhstan are involved in the research and development of drugs against highly contagious infections and are financed from the state budget, according to Akhylbek Kurishbayev, member of the Senate, the upper house of the parliament in Kazakhstan.

As the senator noted, none of these labs are recipients of foreign grants or act as a workplace for foreign specialists.

These laboratories are developing diagnosis and preventive drugs against highly contagious strains of second and third categories. That means that they do not work with highly dangerous viruses from the first category.

None of these laboratories are secret or...

The lower house of the Kazakhstani parliament Mazhilis has approved a new draft law that is aimed at improving the abilities of people with special needs to go around the city when they want to. According to Elnur Beysenbayev, deputy of the Mazhilis, the new law requires taxi companies to have more invalid cars for people with disabilities.

«This draft law is suggesting one novelty. Now any taxi company has to have one invalid car per every ten vehicles in its fleet. So far, the current legislation requires taxi companies to have one handicap-accessible car per 30 regular vehicles. The...