News

Kazakhstan rolled back in the rating of sustainable development goals to the level of 2020, according to Maulen Ashimbayev, speaker of the Senate, the upper house of the parliament.

As he noted, poverty and the deficit of clean water are key challenges for the country.

Kazakhstan joined the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2015 and has been working on the implementation of 17 goals since then. Despite many achievements over the past decade, global problems made Kazakhstan roll back in terms of this indicator. This year, Kazakhstan is ranked 66th out of 166 countries in the SDG ranking compared...

Kazakhstan is ready to resume the Astana Process, the peace talks on Syria, if all participants of the negotiations request the country to do so, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on its website.

The agency also explained why Kazakhstan announced the 20th round of the Astana Process talks on Syria as the last one on its territory.

According to the foreign ministry, the initial goals of the Astana Process format, specifically the creation of de-escalation zones, the end of bloodshed between the conflicting parties and the prevention of a large-scale humanitarian crisis, have been achieved.

Raiffeisenbank, which is a subsidiary of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) in Russia, is going to suspend money transfers in euro to accounts in Kazakhstan and some other countries this July, according to the bank’s website. The restriction will be applied to all accounts owned by individuals, entrepreneurs and businesses.

Due to restrictions imposed by correspondence banks outgoing payments to recipients in Kazakhstan, Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the UAE, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan won’t be available starting from July 3, 2023, the bank reported.

These restrictions will also be applied to outgoing money transfers in euro to...

The consumer price index, the main inflation indicator in Kazakhstan, is going to be at 14.7% in June, which is lower than the previous forecast of 15.2% year on year (0.57% vs 0.7% month on month), according to Applied Economic Research Center (AERC).

«This slight decrease in assessment is driven by factual results in May, which turned out to be lower than the previous assessment by AERC, and stable decline in inflation over the past three months in a row,» the survey said.

At the time, AERC forecast a price surge in May at...

The Specialized Interdistrict Administrative Court of the city of Astana has partially sustained a suit by the North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC), which runs the Kashagan oil field, against the Department of Ecology in the Atyrau region.

According to an official statement about the case, the court sustained three claims out of ten by NCOC. The company wanted the court to rule illegal Order No. 122 issued by the ecology department on November 8, 2022, which allowed officials to conduct preventive monitoring and oversight inspections of NCOC facilities. The company also insisted that the instruction to rectify violations No...

According to Kuandykov, head of the Jusan Analytics research center, the state’s share in quasi-public companies should be reduced to 50% or less, with the exception of natural monopolies.

«The government has to cut its share in the national economy. The recipe for this is quite simple. We need to cut the state’s share in quasi-public companies to 50% or even less, except natural monopolies,» the expert said.

There are 29 institutions that have been established with the aim of supporting small and medium-sized businesses in Kazakhstan. As a result, this has led to a distortion of market realities, Kuandykov...

The public debt of Kazakhstan is at a safe level. The government is going to ensure that the debt won’t exceed 25% of the GDP within the next five years, Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov said during a joint meeting of the higher and lower houses of the parliament.

During the meeting, MP Anas Bakkozhaev asked the prime minister about exactly what the cabinet is doing to decrease public debt.

In response to the inquiry, Smailov stated that the issue of reducing public debt is one of the primary concerns of the cabinet, which is following the best practices in this...

On June 22, 2023, people, vehicles as well as the flow of cargo and goods will not be allowed to use the crossing point at the Kazakhstani-Chinese border, according to the Border Guard Service under the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan.

As the Border Service noted, the border crossing points will be closed because of the Dragon Boat Festival celebration in the People’s Republic of China and in accordance with bilateral agreements between China and Kazakhstan.

On the other hand, the railway checkpoints will operate as usual.

Kazakhstan and China have signed an agreement that allows people to travel from...

The 20th round of the Astana Process talks on Syria was officially pronounced as the last one, according to Kanat Tumysh, deputy foreign minister of Kazakhstan.

On the sidelines of the 20th international meeting devoted to the crisis in Syria commonly known as the Astana Process, Tumysh responded to journalists’ questions about whether new rounds of negotiations on Syria are necessary.

«The gradual exit of Syria from regional isolation is a sign that the Astana Process has reached its goal. Given that Syria is now back to the family of Arab states, we propose to officially...

The Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (ARDFM) of Kazakhstan is planning to amend the national legislation to facilitate new banks to enter the country’s market. The regulator is going to soften requirements for the attraction of deposits. As a result, three new banks may emerge in the country.

According to the draft of this new regulation, the regulator is going to amend several laws associated with the development of the financial market and the protection of the rights of those who consume financial services. As the regulator noted, not a single bank has emerged since...

Kazakhstan is going to export 100,000 tons of oil to Germany per month, although it is exploring the possibility to boost this export, Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliyev said.

«We’ve started our export to Germany from a small amount of oil, about 20,000 per month. Now, after a new agreement has been signed, we are going to increase the oil export to 100,000 tons per month via the Druzhba oil pipeline,» he told journalists in the corridors outside the meeting between President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

According to Satkaliyev, Kazakhstan is...

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany has shared his opinion on the issue of easing visa requirements for citizens of Kazakhstan by saying that this is a very important issue.

Steinmeier said that visa issues are the prerogative of the EU, although Germany “supports EU efforts on this issue.”

In March 2023, Deputy Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Roman Vassilenko said that Kazakhstan was expecting European countries to introduce a visa-free regime for its citizens. At the time, the official noted that Kazakhstan has been supporting a visa-free regime for the EU member states since 2017. This regime was suspended in...

The Almaty city authorities want to build a bottom ash processing plant near the city’s thermal power plant No.2. Once the $21 million project is done, it will be able to reprocess 300,000 tons of bottom ash from the TTP. The project is going to be implemented by the Kazakhstani company Arka Development in conjunction with local authorities and RID Capital from Russia.

Almaty Electric Power Stations (ALES) came up with ash processing at the Almaty TPP No.2 back in 2015. Since then, authorities had been looking for a company that could implement a scientific and technical project on the...

The Ministry of Agriculture of Kazakhstan is planning to start subsidizing the cost of electricity and gas for greenhouses in order to help farmers stay afloat, Agriculture Minister Yerbol Karashukeev said while speaking in front of Majilis, the lower house of the country’s parliament.

According to the minister, while the area of industrial greenhouses has grown by 31.7 hectares over the past three years, the area of small greenhouses run by farmers has decreased by 62 hectares due to surging prices for planting material, fertilizers and utilities. Given that small greenhouses traditionally aren’t that profitable, high utility costs are definitely...

In 2022, foreign direct investments in the economy of the city of Almaty reached $7.6 billion, a 10.9% increase over 2021, according to Dastan Umirbayev, head of the city’s economic department.

The influx of foreign investments was a stimulating factor for the local labor market. In 2022, roughly 40,000 new jobs were created in the city, the official reported.

According to the Almaty city administration, the total investment in fixed capital of the city’s enterprises increased by 12% in 2022 and reached $3.1 billion. Local businesses also supported this growth at the expense of their own funds ($2.2 billion, +21.1%).

Aisultan Seitov, a prominent clip maker from Kazakhstan, won the Best Director prize at the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival. The award was given for his debut movie Qash (Escape). The young director wrote about the news on his Instagram page.

What this award is and to whom it is awarded: The award is called the Golden Goblet Awards Asian New Talent. Any director with a debut film can be nominated for it.

What other awards the film claimed: the movie was also nominated for Best Film and Best Screenwriter.

What the movie Qash is about and when it was...

The Big Almaty Ring Road (BAKAD) project has been officially kicked off. After the opening ceremony, ten cargo tracks, ten buses and dozens of light vehicles marked with the BAKAD logo went along the new road toward Kaskelen, a small town west of Almaty.

«The new road is bound to be the key element of the Western China-Western Europe transport corridor, which is going to boost the economic development of the entire region. In addition, the ring road is an effective tool to reduce the burden on the road system of Almaty and its suburbs,» Governor...

The Stolen Assets Recovery (StAR) Initiative by the World Bank and the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) is going to assist Kazakhstan in its endeavor to reclaim illegally withdrawn assets, the General Prosecutor’s Office of Kazakhstan said.

Why the StAR initiative will assist Kazakhstan in the recovery of assets

On June 12-16, 2023, a Kazakhstani delegation headed by Deputy General Prosecutor of Kazakhstan Ulan Baizhanov, took part in the Conference of the States Parties to the UN Convention Against Corruption in Vienna (Austria). During the meeting, Kazakhstani officials enlisted the help of the StAR initiative in returning illegally...

As Dmitry Makeev, deputy head of KazMunayGas (KMG), told Kursiv, diesel fuel consumption is going to grow from the current 5.5 million tons per year to 8 million tons by 2035.

«We’ve conducted a marketing study and now we have a certain understanding of how the demand for oil products will grow in Kazakhstan. I can’t disclose all the details of the study for confidentiality reasons, but it’s safe to say that we know that diesel fuel consumption is going to grow to 8 million tons by 2035, while the current level of consumption is about...

The National Bank of Kazakhstan may start gradually decreasing the base rate in the second half of 2023, according to Galymzhan Pirmatov, head of the agency, who spoke in the Senate, the upper house of the country’s parliament.

«In the second half of this year, the National Bank is going to consider the practicability of a smooth and prudent reduction of the base rate. Whether we’ll do this or not will depend on the correlation between real price surge and forecasted figures, the tempo of base inflation cooling (while fuel and utility prices grow), the dynamics...

The government is going to seek public support for the nuclear plant project through public hearings. A referendum on the issue isn’t on the agenda, according to Zhandos Nurmagambetov, deputy minister of energy.

«We aren’t going to discuss the practicability of the project itself. First of all, we are going to discuss the technology, financial and economic model of the project as well as a possible location of a nuclear plant. There will be public hearings,» the official told Kursiv.

Journalists also asked him whether foreign partners would push the government to choose one specific technology.

«None of those countries...

According to Aybek Smadiyarov, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, the unilateral decision of Costa Rica to introduce a visa regime with Kazakhstan was probably driven by an intention to stop a huge inflow of illegal migrants from Kazakhstan.

On May 29, 2023, many in Kazakhstan learned that Costa Rica introduced a visa regime for Kazakhstanis on a unilateral basis. Given that this Latin American country didn’t inform Kazakhstan in advance, those who planned to go to that country learned about the new requirements shortly before the departure.

As the MFA’s official spokesperson noted, it’s...

Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ), the national railway company in Kazakhstan has banned the supply of jet fuel from Russia to Kazakhstan. The ban entered into force today June 14 and will last until July 14, according to the RBC news agency, citing CIS Railway Council (CRC).

«In accordance with the appeal of KTZ filed on June 8, 2023, the CRC’s management office has introduced a conventional ban for the transportation of kerosene and jet fuel from all stations of Russian railways to all stations of Kazakhstan. The ban entered into force today on June 14 and...

After two readings in the parliament, Kazakhstani MPs have adopted a new law on returning assets illegally withdrawn from the country.

The key goal of the law is to settle a range of issues associated with disclosure of illegally obtained and withdrawn assets. The document will also regulate a range of issues associated with reclaiming the money by the government and its management.

The interesting point of the law is that it prohibits publishing a list of the rich Kazakhstanis who illegally withdrew assets from the country. The law requires Prosecutor General’s Office to establish a special task force responsible...