News

As the trading sessions on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) have shown today, the shares of prominent Kazakhstan companies such as Kaspi, Halyk Bank and Kazatomprom are in a free fall.

GDR of Kaspi (equivalents to common shares) dropped by 19.62% on the LSE to $63.1 per GDP. At the same time, the value of the company’s shares declined by 13.35% to $70.

Earlier, Kaspi shares dropped by 74.5% to $20. According to the company, this decline is a sign of the swift reaction of Western partners to the current geopolitical risks. As Kaspi noted...

The National Bank of Kazakhstan has decided to increase the base rate from 10.25% to 13.5% with the percentage corridor +/– 1 p.p. The rate of the standing facility for liquidity provision is going to be at 14.5% and 12.5% for the standing facility for liquidity withdrawal.

According to the National Bank, this decision became necessary to support staple prices while geopolitical risks have been unfolding in Ukraine. As the bank press services noted, this was not a surprise because the government of Kazakhstan and the National Bank had awaited this worst-case scenario and are prepared to roll out anti-crisis...

Kazakhstan’s embassy to Kyiv has started the evacuation of citizens of Kazakhstan due to the latest events in Ukraine, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.

Citizens of Kazakhstan who currently stay in Ukraine can contact the Embassy at 26 Ilyenko Street, Kyiv or call by phone: +38 (067) 347 04 08 (WhatsApp, Viber), +38 (044) 483 15 96, and +38 (044) 489 18 58.

«Our fellow citizens can also contact offices of Kazakhstan’s Honorary Consulates in Kharkiv (it covers the Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava regions), Lviv (the Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Chernovitski and Lviv regions), and Odessa...

Nexign, a major international provider of BSS solutions, has announced the completion of Phase One and the commencement of Phase Two in the project on installing Nexign Converged BSS at Kcell, one of the largest mobile operators in Kazakhstan servicing 8 million subscribers, which accounts for a half of the country’s population.

Currently, the initial configuring of the system has been finalized and it is operating in pilot mode with a limited number of customers. Phase Two will include the adjustment and field-testing of the billing platform as well as on-demand migration, and will conclude with the system’s commercial commissioning...

Air Astana, a national air carrier in Kazakhstan, is keeping an eye on the situation around Ukraine and will immediately stop its direct flights between the countries if the situation worsens, said Tlek Abdrakhmanov, corporate communications manager in the company.

«To make sure that both Kazakhstan and Ukraine citizens are able to travel back home, Air Astana is going to continue to conduct flights between the two countries by an alternative route with a technical stop in Atyrau (the West Kazakhstan region),» said Abdrakhmanov.

The departure time from Almaty and Nur-Sultan hasn’t been changed while the arrival time in Kyiv...

The size of recycling fees for vehicles in Kazakhstan has been reduced by 50%, according to the Khabar24 TV channel citing Roman Sklyar, the first vice minister of the country.

«The decision has been made. The current level of financial stimulation of the automobile industry allows us to cut the recycling fee twofold for all types of vehicles and agricultural machinery,» the official said.

The government plans to make allowances to the system when needed. In other words, the fee may be reduced even more or increased if necessary.

According to Sklyar, the recycling fee is an effective incentive for...

Cerebra is entering Uzbekistan’s market, after receiving funding from Timur Turlov, CEO of Freedom Holding Corp. in June 2021. The company is going to launch its pilot project at the base of two Uzbek clinics, according to the press service of Astana Hub.

Cerebra is an IT company from Almaty that has been working in the area of artificial intelligence since 2018. The company’s software helps neurobiologists to disclose cerebral thrombosis within a ten-minute test. The program is now available in 18 consultant centers across Kazakhstan.

According to Doszhan Zhussupov, head of the project, the company has got several offers...

According to the press service of QazaqGaz, the company has changed its board of directors.

«In accordance with the decision of Samruk-Kazyna, a corporate parent to QazaqGaz, the company has changed members of the board. Three of the board’s members were dismissed from office: Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, Kairat Sharipbayev and Malik Saulebay,» the press service reported.

Now Ernat Berdigulov and Nikolay Kazutin will be guards of the interests of Samruk-Kazyna.

Moreover, Ernat Berdigulov has been elected as the new chairman of the board of directors of QazaqGaz. 

After all these staff changes, the company’s board now includes four members: Ernat Berdigulov...

DiDi, a Chinese company that runs taxi-hailing services in Russia and Kazakhstan, has declared it is going to stop working in both countries.

«Our mission here in DiDi is to make daily life more comfortable through the best possible services for our passengers and partners. Unfortunately, we are no longer able to continue this practice in Kazakhstan, which is the reason DiDi is going to stop working here on March 4, 2022,» the company said on social media.

The company has expressed its gratitude toward drivers and passengers who have been supporters of the service since the very beginning of...

The Ministry of Health of Kazakhstan has approved Sputnik M, the new Russian vaccine for teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17, the TASS news agency reported. The country has become the first state excluding Russia that approved the vaccine.

On November 24, 2021, the Russian ministry of health registered the new two-component Sputnik M vaccine for teenagers. The developer of the vaccine is the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. In fact, this is a reduced dose (1/5) of Sputnik V for adults.

The vaccine has been registered after a series of clinical trials that have proven the high profile...

According to Dauren Kozybakov, deputy head of the department of the Committee of Administrative Police Kazakhstan’s citizens have given back 109 items of small arms that were stolen during the January events in Almaty and several other regions all over the country.

These arms include 11 rifled weapons, 53 items of smoothbore weapons and other types of guns.

As the law enforcement official noted, all people who had given these arms voluntarily won’t face any charges of illegal possession of arms and explosives, of course, if they haven’t used these guns to commit a crime.

According to the Office of...

As the official spokesperson of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Berik Uali wrote on Facebook that the president has been informationally attacked. The president doesn’t possess any bank accounts in Switzerland.

Moreover, the spokesperson said that the president has no accounts in a foreign bank or offshore company nor possesses any foreign property.

This is nothing more than a fake, this is an information attack against the country’s leader aimed at undermining the public trust toward the president because he actively works on putting limits to the monopoly in the national economy and political sphere. Some people hate that...

The former defense minister of Kazakhstan Marat Bektanov was detained in Nur-Sultan. He has since been taken into custody.

According to the Ministry of Defense, the official is accused of non-feasance during the January unrest.

The criminal investigation into mass disorder and terrorism in the territory of Kazakhstan has established that the former defense minister Bektanov has failed to take actions he was supposed to take.

OFFICE OF THE PROSECUTOR GENERAL

On February 19, the Office of the Prosecutor General initiated the pre-trial investigation under Article 452 of the country’s Criminal Code (inaction of authorities). This article of...

Hungarian law enforcement officials have detained a citizen of Romania who is accused of stealing money from unspecified commercial banks in Kazakhstan.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, the hacker was put on an international wanted list by the police department from Almaty. Along with other criminal figures from different countries the hacker had been cracking accounts of a variety of banks in Kazakhstan, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Taiwan. He transferred stolen money to banking cards and then withdrew that money through ATMs.

The total amount of damage is more than $9 million. Currently, Hungarian authorities...

On February 18, while giving a speech to the congress of the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs Atameken Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov said that the cabinet he’s headed is ready to reboot its way of work.

The national chamber of entrepreneurs must be focused on solving the most urgent issues that affect business. As a government, we are ready to go through the transformation along with entrepreneurs to improve the business environment here in Kazakhstan. The task of developing entrepreneurship is the basis of the new economic policy that the government is going to pursue in 2022.

PRIME MINISTER...

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is going to reveal preliminary results of the investigation into the January events during his national address in March, the president’s official spokesperson Berik Uali wrote on Facebook.

The spokesman noted that so far the investigation is still ongoing as investigators need some time to make sure this task is done.

As President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said in the interview with the Qazaqstan TV channel, all the information will be revealed. We are not going to hide anything from the people of Kazakhstan.

BERIK UALI, SPOKESMAN FOR PRESIDENT TOKAYEV

The official added that the authorities...

Three universities have been closed by the decision of a court, according to the press service of the Ministry of Education and Science.

These three universities are Central Asian University, the University of Humanities and Technology in Aktau and Astana University.

These entities used to hold low positions in the education rating by the National Entrepreneurs Chamber Atameken for several years in a row. Many of the educational programs by these universities didn’t meet the requirements of the modern labor market and were unpopular among students. Moreover, all three entities failed to improve their work and never tried to attract...

A special congress of the National Entrepreneurs Chamber “Atameken” has elected Raimbek Batalov as the new chairman of the chamber. His candidacy was supported by 248 members, while nine cast a negative vote and 38 abstained.

Batalov has superseded Timur Kulibaev, who had held the office since 2013. He expressed gratitude to those who have supported his candidacy and promised to reform the chamber.

On January 17, Timur Kulibayev, the husband to the oldest daughter of the former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, stepped down from the position of the chamber’s head.

Raimbek Batalov was born on November 21, 1970 in Almaty...

Dinar Nuketayeva, a member of the Senate, the upper chamber of Kazakhstan’s parliament, has suggested Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov revise the cabinet’s approach to migration. The country needs to take drastic actions to stop qualified workers from moving abroad.

Many of our fellow citizens, first of all, the youth, have decided to travel abroad as they haven’t found a job here in Kazakhstan and don’t have enough money to support their families and themselves. They hope to find a good job in another country and this creates an entire army of migrant workers from Kazakhstan.

DINAR NUKETAYEVA, A...

Due to the improvement of the epidemiologic situation in the capital of Kazakhstan quarantine measures in the city have been softened since February 16, said Sarkhat Beisenova, chief sanitary doctor of the city of Nur-Sultan.

Now all businesses which have been available for people with blue and green status in the Ashyq mobile app can use 70% of their capacity. Those include theaters, cinemas, concert halls, philharmonic, pool halls, circus, restaurants and cafés.

The number of reported COVID-19 cases in Nur-Sultan reduced last week 2.9-fold compared to the week earlier. However, the fact of being in the yellow zone doesn’t...

According to Sultan Dyusembinov, a deputy of the Senate, religious extremists played an active part in the January events in Kazakhstan. The senator noted that these people wanted to seize power in the country. They want to create a caliphate, they want to live in a caliphate and they have no respect for the constitution.

Over 2018-2022 Kazakhstan allocated about $631 million to stop religious extremism and terrorism from spreading, but only 4% of this money was spent on preventing this idea from becoming popular.

To fight this tendency, Dyusembinov has suggested Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov make a point of...

The Almaty Department of the Agency for Financial Monitoring has revealed public funds embezzlement in the amount of more than $23,000. The money was allocated to the support and rehabilitation of patients with psychoneurological diseases. According to investigators, the chief accountant and an employee of medical and social center Demeu under the department of education of Almaty had conspired to embezzle this money.

In the process of the criminal investigation, law enforcement officials were able to return all the money to the government. Both individuals charged with embezzlement have been sentenced to three years in jail.

In 2021, the Department...

Deputies of Mazhilis, the lower chamber of the country’s parliament, have approved a draft law that is going to punish those officials whose expenses were proven to be higher than the income they have officially declared. Once the draft law is approved, officials who enjoy a lavish lifestyle might be discharged from office.

The draft law is also going to introduce a system of control for income and expenses not only of high-ranking public servants but their spouses as well.

While deputies discussed the draft law, the head of the anti-corruption agency commented on the issue.

It’s...

The lower chamber of Kazakhstan’s parliament has approved in the first reading a new draft law that aims at protecting those who reported a corruption-related crime.

According to the current legislation, the state protects informants if they are part of a criminal investigation and the risk of violence against them is real.

The new draft law suggests protecting cooperative individuals in the area of workplace relations as well. As a result, it is going to be impossible to fire an employee if he reports a corruption-related crime committed by his boss. Moreover, a whistleblower that helps law enforcement officials to...