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On March 29, Rustam Akhmetov, the first deputy chairman of the Agency for Protection and Development of Competition stated that the government won’t be able to support domestic prices for gas after 2025. This assessment is based on the rate of annual growth of gas consumption in Kazakhstan and the shrinking volumes of fuel that have been exported by the country abroad.

In 2021, Kazakhstan exported 7 billion cubic meters of gas out of the 25 billion cubic meters of gas the country produced in total. For years the government of Kazakhstan has subsidized domestic gas prices at the expense...

Euro-5 road tractors will be free from recycling fees. Moreover, a fee for the first registration will also be lifted, according to Kairbek Uskenbayev, Kazakhstan’s minister of industry and infrastructural development.

As the official said, the move is aimed at improving the competitiveness of local carriers. The government wants the domestic lorry fleet to increase from 7,615 trucks to 15,000 trucks by 2025.

«Over the period from 2023 to 2028 no fee for first registration will be required for Euro-5 trucks. Also, this kind of vehicle from 12 to 50 tons in weight will be free from a recycling fee...

As herd immunity in Kazakhstan has become a reality, the government decided to lift any limitations for vaccination and revaccination with Pfizer’s vaccine for all categories of citizens in the country.

According to Eraly Tugzhanov, deputy prime minister of Kazakhstan, the decision regarding overall vaccination is a result of three prior stages. In the first stage, the vaccination with Pfizer covered pregnant women, teenagers and those who headed abroad. In the second stage, the country’s health system started to vaccinate elderly people over age 60 and then over 50.

«Today more than 10 million people in Kazakhstan are fully vaccinated...

According to his official website, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has appointed Erulan Zhamaubayev to be the new deputy head of the cabinet.

«To appoint Erulan Zhamaubayev deputy prime minister – minister of finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan and to discharge him from the position of minister of finance,» the official edict by the president said.

Erulan Zhamaubayev was born in 1974. He graduated from the Kazakh State Academy of Management, faculty of finance and Kazakh Economy University named after Ryskulov, MBA.

Over his career, Zhamaubayev worked in the National Bank of Kazakhstan, the House Construction Savings bank of Kazakhstan and...

As Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Justice reported, the country has won a case in an arbitration court against Big Sky Energy Corporation. The decision of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), an international arbitration institution entered into force on March 25, when the deadline for appeal had expired.

Big Sky had tried to make the Republic of Kazakhstan pay $460 million of compensation for contracts with third parties not linked to the government.

«Big Sky had tried to claim restitution from the state of Kazakhstan based on alleged violations of the US-Kazakhstan investment agreement,» said the ministry.

The...

The Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) has decided to lift its customs tariff for electric cars imported in the Eurasian Economic Union member-states in a limited quantity, Kolesa.kz reported.

Among countries that are going to introduce zero tariffs for importing electric cars are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Currently, all these countries except Kazakhstan have in practice a 15% tariff.

The new rule also prohibits owning, using or controlling these electric vehicles by people who have either Russian citizenship or residence permit by Russia.

«We expect that these new tariff benefits along with other measures aimed at stimulating...

While responding to a question about what he is thinking of the legal side of the arrest of Kairat Satybaldy, nephew of the first president Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kanat Musin, the country’s minister of justice pointed out that the constitutional law on the first president covers members of his immediate family, not nephews, Sputnik Kazakhstan reported.

He denied the possibility of legal prosecution of Nursultan Nazarbayev and his daughter Dariga Nazarbayeva.

«We cannot detain or arrest these individuals. This is a law. However, there are no problems with asking them questions and receiving answers,» said Kanat Music.

He believes that law...

Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have mutually recognized COVID-19 vaccination certificates, the Kun.uz website reported citing Uzbekistan Airways.

«While crossing the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan citizens of both countries are no longer required to provide a negative PCR test result if they have vaccination certificates,» the company said. All those certificates must have QR codes.

On March 15, 2022, a special republican commission on fighting against COVID-19 in Uzbekistan decided to allow foreigners to visit the country with only a vaccination certificate; a PCR test is no longer required.

However, if a foreigner has no vaccination certificate he or she must...

President’s Biden administration is trying to find out what the U.S. can do to make sanctions more painful for Russia. According to the Washington Post, a new tranche of sanctions may be targeted at third countries, which still support close economic ties with Russia. The final decision hasn’t been made though, the newspaper reported.

This strategy which is also known as «secondary sanctions» is usually aimed at increasing pain from economic sanctions. The United States has applied them in only a few cases. If these secondary sanctions are adopted, several countries in Asia, including Kazakhstan, which have abstained from cutting...

The biggest Russian airline Aeroflot has launched regular flights from Sochi to Armenia, Egypt, Israel, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Uzbekistan, according to the Interfax-Kazakhstan newswire.

As the company said, these routes have been launched to serve transit passengers who travel from the main airline’s airports including Moscow (Sheremetyevo), Saint Petersburg and Krasnoyarsk via the international airport of Sochi.

From Sochi passengers will be able to travel by another airline called «Russia,» which is going to conduct all further flights for Aeroflot.

At the beginning of March Aeroflot canceled all international flights except direct flights to Minsk, Belarus. This decision followed a...

The town of Ust-Kamenogorsk is the center of the nonferrous-metals industry in Kazakhstan. It is located at the mouth of Irtysh and Ulba Rivers. This story by The Real Kazakhstan, a project by the Kursiv edition and Chevron, is going to talk about the town of Ust-Kamenogorsk, its way of life and problems.

Over the period from 2021 to 2023, the town is going to earn $137.7 million while its estimated costs during this period won’t exceed $114.1 million. According to the local administration, Ust-Kamenogorsk ranked first in Kazakhstan in terms of industrial output, third in terms of agriculture, construction...

The town of Ayagoz was established more than 90 years ago. The current name of the town is the same as the nearby river. However, the settlement that was established nearby in the tsarist imperial period was called Sergiopol. During the Soviet times, the town was called Ayaguz. In 1994 it was renamed Ayagoz, which is the correct spelling of the Kazakh name of the river.

The modern town was established in 1931 near the village of Mamyrsu as the Soviet authorities initiated the massive construction of the Turkestan-Siberia Railway. Among many other buildings in the town, there were telegraph...

Kazakhstan and its partners have done an incredible job creating TITR. Amid the crisis in Ukraine, these efforts may pay back even though the maximal volume of transit is quite small now and doesn’t exceed 200,000 containers a year.

In overdrive

The crisis in Ukraine has turned into a crisis in transport and logistics for all of Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states used to rely on export and import routes via Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Now the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) is the only alternative transport corridor to the West.

During the past couple...

In the fourth national address, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has announced a plan of moderate political reforms. He also mentioned new measures aimed at stabilizing the national economy and ordered the creation of new administrative divisions.

No longer a superpresidency

The part of the address devoted to political reforms was the most intense. Right after the January events, President Tokayev promised to present a complex of new political reforms that may facilitate political competition in the country.

«“We need specific actions to change the political model of Kazakhstan. This is necessary for the further development of the country. We...

Most recently, Kazakhstan’s banks reported a growing number of requests from Russian financial entities, companies and individuals who want to set up a bank account in Kazakhstan. This information has been confirmed by several sources familiar with the issue.

About ten Russian banks have been sanctioned by western countries. VTB, Bank Otkritie, Sovkombank, Promsvyazbank and Novikombank, all of which were included in the SDN list, have faced the most severe sanctions. Correspondent accounts of the Russian Sber have also been sanctioned by American and British authorities. To avoid new limitations in work Russian entrepreneurs and bankers are now looking at...

As President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said at the meeting with both chambers of the national parliament, Kazakhstan is going to embrace a new political system with strong parliament instead of the superpresidency the country relies on currently.

«We need specific actions to change the political model of Kazakhstan. This is necessary for the further development of Kazakhstan. We have to make a transition from the superpresidency to a presidential form of government with a strong parliament. This system will provide us with a good balance between public institutions and facilitate sustainable development of the country,» Tokayev said.

The president also stated...

While attending a joint session of the parliament President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev suggested simplifying the process of political party registration.

«We have to decrease the registration qualification for parties fourfold from 20,000 to 5,000. The threshold of a minimal quantity of party supporters in regions must be decreased from 600 t0 200 people. And only 700 individuals instead of 1,000 will be needed to establish a political party,» said the president.

Tokayev also noted that the government is going to increase the time frame for founding congresses and creating representative offices in regions. The president believes that these measures will promote...

The Financial Monitoring Agency has detained Kairat Boranbayev, one of the richest businessmen in Kazakhstan, reported Kaztag.kz and Vlast.kz citing the law enforcement agency.

However, the agency didn’t confirm this when it responded to the Kursiv.media edition’s request. «There is no official information. We will inform you once we have this information,» the agency said.

Boranbayev is a relative of the older daughter of the former president Nazarbayev. In 2013 Aisultan Nazarbayev, younger son of Dariga Nazarbayeva married Alima Boranbayeva, daughter of Kairat Boranbayev. In 2020 Aysultan died.

Kairat Boranbayev was born September 22, 1966. In 1989 he graduated from...

Head of the Almaty region Kanat Bozumbayev has suggested transferring his official residence in the town of Zharkent near the Chinese border to a rehabilitation center for children, the governor’s press service reported.

At the meeting with residents of the Panfilov district, Bozumbayev said that he’s going to give away his official residence in the town. «There is my residence in Zharkent. I don’t need it. There are a lot of nice guests houses and cafes with lovely food here. So, I am going to pass over this residence to a children’s rehabilitation center,» he said.

According to the official...

According to Finance Minister Erulan Zhamaubayev, the National Bank and the Ministry of Finance are going to make adjustments to the accounting rate of the US dollar for 2022, inflation corridor and other parameters of the state budget.

«Currently, along with the National Bank, we are going to make adjustments to the state budget this year including all those parameters such as the accounting rate of the dollar and the inflation corridor. We are going to discuss these issues this week. This figure (accounting rate of the U.S. dollar) will be clear once the state budget is formed,» he said.

The chief sanitary doctor of Kazakhstan Ayzhan Esmagambetova has signed a new rule that allows education entities in yellow and green zones with few or no new COVID-19 cases to soften anti-epidemiological measures.

For example, in all public and private educational organizations pupils are no longer required to keep social distancing and measure their body temperature while entering school.

From now on all these measures and the mobile app Ashyq aren’t mandatory for schools and universities.

However, the government noted that if the sanitary and epidemiological situation worsens, it can once again roll out the Ashyq mobile app, social distancing...

The risk of technical default in Russia is quite real. When the West targets the foreign currency assets of the Bank of Russia, it wants this to happen. However, experts believe that this won’t ruin the Russian economy or severely hit Kazakhstan. The exchange rate will continue to decline though because of sanctions. Aydarkhan Kusainov thinks that the exchange rate between the Russian ruble and Kazakhstan tenge isn’t well balanced. 

New low

According to Kusainov, even if Russia deаfaults it wouldn’t have a severe impact on the Russian economy as all possible sanctions have already been announced.

«Sovereign...

Today, on March 14, the first part of the humanitarian aid from Kazakhstan has been sent to Ukraine; the second part will be sent tomorrow, according to the Ministry of Health. The cargo is set to arrive in Katowice, Poland as local organizations which are involved in the distribution of humanitarian aid in Ukraine agreed to take the aid.

The weight of the aid from Kazakhstan is 28.2 tons in total. This cargo is going to include 17 different types of medicines including antibiotics, anti-inflammatory and antihypertensive drugs.

Kazakhstan is sending this humanitarian aid to fulfill President Tokayev’s order and...

According to the 24.kg website citing the Border Service under the State Committee of National Security of Kyrgyzstan, delegations from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have agreed to refrain from using their weapons on the common border.

Both sides have discussed a range of issues linked to border security. They have paid particular attention to the issue of prevention combat incidents on the border that the two countries share.

As a result, both sides agreed to prohibit their soldiers from using weapons except on occasions when such use of weapons is reasonable from a legal point of view.

Moreover, heads of Tajik...