News

The Senate, the upper house of Kazakhstan’s parliament has adopted a new law banning the advertising of any financial pyramids in the country.

The new law makes the penalty for the creation and advertising of Ponzi schemes much tougher. Now it’s not just about a financial penalty: those who violate the law may find themselves in jail.

«Financial pyramids are one of the biggest problems we must fight. We have to constantly improve our legislation in order to make it meet all the modern challenges. The new law deems the advertisement of any Ponzi scheme a crime and brings a...

KazMunayGaz (KMG), a national oil and gas company in Kazakhstan, is planning to go public by the end of this year, according to Almasadam Satkaliyev, head of Samruk-Kazyna, a sovereign wealth fund that owns the company. The revelation was made during Astana Finance Days in Nur-Sultan.

According to Satkaliyev, the fund and KMG have negotiated with the leading investment banks in Kazakhstan. The forthcoming IPO is going to be available for all citizens of Kazakhstan, although it will also be aimed at a wide range of retail and institutional investors.

«In order to attract as many people as we can...

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has ordered the government and AIFC to take necessary measures to facilitate the development of the cryptocurrency industry and digital assets. This statement was made at the meeting of the Management Council of the Astana International Financial Center Council, according to the press service of the president.

Kazakhstan must harness its potential in full, Tokayev noted.

«We are ranked #2 in terms of digital mining, but we have to do everything needed to abandon this solely raw-exports role. The government along with the financial agencies and AIFC should create better regulatory conditions for the comprehensive development of...

According to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the task of promoting the country’s national companies to the initial public offering (IPO) is priority number one. He made this statement during the meeting of the Managing Council of the Astana International Financial Center, the Akorda press service reported.

While President Tokayev talked about the IPO for national companies in Kazakhstan, he cited the example of the Samruk-Kazyna holding and its subsidiaries.

«Our fellow citizens shall have an opportunity to buy stock of our national companies and receive dividends from these investments. This is how the culture of investing is evolving,» the president highlighted.

Uzbekistan is going to upgrade its power supply system. This will require curbing the powers of the National Electric Grid of Uzbekistan, the state-owned company that is responsible for the entire system. Now, the country is planning to decrease the role of this company and let new suppliers improve the industry.

It is expected that JSC «National Electric Grid of Uzbekistan» will lose some of its responsibilities in purchasing electricity and managing the power grid. As a result, better conditions for private energy-producing companies would emerge, the government said. Once the new rules enter into force, big companies and regional...

According to trading data from the London Stock Exchange, Kaspi stock dropped by 6.81% ($47.9). At the same time, the trading results Kaspi demonstrates on KASE are slightly better as the company is traded at $53.48 per share or +1.2% compared to Thursday.

Baurzhan Tulepov, head of analytics in Jusan Invest believes that the company will rebound in the long-term, even though this is hard to achieve right now because of a big project the company has bought in Ukraine.

In summer 2021, Kaspi announced the acquisition of Portmone, a payment service in Ukraine. Some analytics have estimated the deal...

On June 24, the national pavilion of Kazakhstan opened on Alibaba’s Tmall Global Platform, according to the press service of the Ministry of Trade and Integration.

In 2021, QazTrade, a Kazakhstani entity responsible for entering the platform, signed a framework agreement with Alibaba.com on cooperation and promotion of Kazakhstani goods on global markets through the prominent Chinese trading platform.

Since 2019 about 200 Kazakhstani companies have successfully entered Alibaba.com with help of the government.

«The country’s pavilion includes 130 of our companies with a golden supplier status. All together they offer 7,500 items of goods,» the press service said.

Among...

The political concept of New Kazakhstan is going to be based on an effective party system, which is a kind of a mediator between the state and society. However, when the government promised to simplify registration rules for parties, many became curious about how many parties the country is going to have – 20, 30, or more than 200 like in Kyrgyzstan?

More likely we’ll see about 20 parties while only half of them would be registered because the standard political activities require a lot of money. In the past, only the state and oligarchic groups were able to run...

The European Union has expressed interest in cooperation with Kazakhstan in the area of rare metals and green hydrogen, according to Kazakhstan’s MFO.

The EU and Kazakhstan held their 19th meeting of the Cooperation Committee. The EU’s delegation was headed by Catherine Colonna, minister of Europe and foreign affairs in France. In turn, the Republic of Kazakhstan was represented by Mukhtar Tleuberdi, the foreign minister.

«In the course of negotiations, both sides have shown their interest in intensifying cooperation in the area of renewable energy. It includes mutual activity aimed at extraction and processing of rare metals and producing green...

According to people familiar with the matter, Russian public companies aren’t going to be listed on the new exchange or put money into it. However, SBP Exchange can provide the new project with technological support.

Earlier this week Frank Media reported that AIFC is going to establish a new stock exchange in order to facilitate Russia to get foreign investments. Also, such a new exchange would have been useful for retail investors as they can no longer trade with securities because of Western sanctions. According to the news agency, the idea had been discussed by the Bank of Russia, SPB...

Natalya Godunova, the head of Kazakhstan’s Counting Committee has suggested rolling back three-year budget planning due to its low efficacy.

While speaking to the parliament, Ms. Godunova said that the practice of three-year budget planning has never operated in full. The government puts a lot of resources into the preparation of each three-year budget plan but then it is forced to revise and adjust that plan each year.

«We do not even glimpse to the future and often we have to remove some items of cost out of the budget even though they had been approved before,» Godunova said.

As...

According to Magzum Mirzagaliyev, chairman of the board of Kazakhstan’s national oil and gas company KazMunayGaz, Chevron’s expertise in low carbon technologies and good practices it’s developed may help Kazakhstan to expand its efforts in reducing carbon emissions.

As a result, Chevron (via its subsidiary Chevron Munaygaz Inc.) and KazMunayGaz have signed a memorandum of cooperation. In the first stage, the two sides are going to study what they can jointly do to expand carbon capture, utilization and storage projects.

As Mirzagaliyev noted, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev pledged to make the country carbon neutral by 2060 when he spoke at the...

The only reason the first president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev theoretically might be prosecuted is treason, but there is no ground for this, according to Kanat Musin, the minister of justice in Kazakhstan.

Concerning the daughters of the first president Dariga and Aliya Nazarbayev and their husbands, there are no references in the Constitution to the ex-president’s family, Musin said. The law on the first president doesn’t protect them.

On June 10, the Nur-Sultan court extended the detention of Kairat Boranbayev and Kairat Satybaldy, both relatives of Nazarbayev. They are accused of embezzlement.

While responding to the question on Article...

As part of the demonopolization of power supply and communications, the government of Kazakhstan has suggested decreasing Kazakhtelecom’s share (the company is the national operator in the sphere of communications) in the sphere of mobile communications, according to the press service of the prime minister.

The suggestion was made during a meeting of the Commission on the Economy Demonopolization by a representative of the Agency for Protection and Development of Competition.

«In order to proceed with the demonopolization of the communication market, it’s been suggested to cut the market share of Kazakhtelecom. The prime minister has ordered to go behind...

Over the period from January through April more than four million square meters of property were built in Kazakhstan. The total amount of investments that were put into the industry surpassed $1.9 billion. The fastest-growing sectors of the industry became non-residential buildings and oil and gas pipelines.  

According to the Bureau of National Statistics of Kazakhstan, installation and construction work, which accounts for 88% of the construction industry ($1.7 billion), added 10% of the industry growth in terms of money. For comparison, major and minor repairs have shown unimpressive results: +0.2% and -4.4% respectively. Over the same period (January to...

Over the past decade, the number of saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan soared sixtyfold, thanks to large-scale conservation efforts by the government. At the moment, there are 1.3 million saiga specimens in the country. According to the Ministry of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources, this number is too big as the animals can harm farms located all over the massive plains. That’s why the ministry decided to place saiga antelopes on the list of regulated animals. However, the agency hasn’t taken any decision about the hunting of saiga.

As the ministry announced, the animals that were considered endangered for years, are...

A new tariff cap for electricity is going to be adopted in Kazakhstan on July 1. The price increase is estimated to be from 3% to 25% for certain power stations, according to the rule signed by the minister of energy.

The document says that there are 47 groups of electricity producers that sell the power in Kazakhstan. The new rule makes the tariff cap for 26 such groups higher while it doesn’t hit the other 21 groups of electricity producers. However, the ministry has a detailed tariff plan for each power station up until 2025.

The tariff for group...

Some of the Indian students who studied in Ukraine will be admitted to Kazakhstan’s universities. The health ministries of India and Kazakhstan have negotiated on the issue, according to Ms. Azhar Giniyat, the minister of health in Kazakhstan.

«The government of India has officially asked us for assistance. Moreover, the foreign minister of India visited our country yesterday. More than 20,000 Indian students who studied in Ukraine can’t continue their education there. In principle, our universities are ready to admit 200 Indian students. All those students have paid for their education,» she said.

The official also noted that some students...

Alibek Kuantyrov, the minister of the national economy has recommended people of Kazakhstan cut their costs for a while.

He forecasts that the people have to be patient for about two or three months.

«We have to cut our costs wherever it is appropriate. We have such an experience. Unfortunately, an economy is cyclical and we have to cope with such situations time after time. However, the inflation is not as high as in 2015-2016. I think the situation is going to stabilize soon. We just need to wait,» the minister said while responding to the question of why some...

According to the press service of the president’s office, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has appointed new ambassadors to Germany and the Lebanese Republic.

Thus, Nurlan Onzhanov has replaced Dauren Karipov in the position of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Germany.

Onzhanov was born in 1960. He graduated from Humboldt University in Berlin. Over the years of his diplomatic career, he served as a counselor in Kazakhstan’s Embassy to Switzerland, head of the economic politics department under the foreign ministry and counselor of Kazakhstan’s Embassy to Germany.

Moreover, he served as consul-general of Kazakhstan in Frankfurt and...

Freedom Finance investment company has been chosen as an underwriter for the initial public offering for UzAuto Motors, according to Eugene Mozheiko, executive director of Freedom Finance in Uzbekistan.

This spring UzAuto Motors announced bidding for potential underwriters. On June 6, the procurement committee of the Uzbek automaker revealed its final decision. As a result, Freedom Finance is expected to sell 5% stock of UzAuto Motors within the country while about 25% of the stock must be sold on foreign stock exchanges.

«Freedom Finance is going to arrange stock launches on two stock exchanges. The very first stage is local...

Freedom Finance has presented the updated design of its logo: the word “finance” is no longer in the name of the group. Also, the holding has changed its motto to «One brand – a thousand opportunities.» So the next step is the transformation of the holding into a highly effective ecosystem, stated Timur Turlov, CEO of Freedom Holding Corp. during the annual report presentation.

Ecosystem, naming and key areas of activity

Over the past few years, the holding has turned into a huge ecosystem and the new name highlights that the company is now something bigger than just...

The Ministry of National Economy has presented its forecast for the social and economic development of the country for the next five years. Kazakhstan’s population is going to grow by 250,000 people each year and will reach 20 million by 2025. However, population growth doesn’t mean an increase in the workforce, according to the labor market indicators.

The forecast is based on the population growth statistics over the past few years. For example, it took 3.5 years for Kazakhstan to increase its population from 18 million to 19 million (2018-2021). If this logic is correct, the country will reach the...

According to Chairman of the Senate (the upper house of the parliament in Kazakhstan) Maulen Ashimbayev, the former president Nursultan Nazarbayev does not influence the country’s political course.

«Mr. Nazarbayev took part in the referendum, which is the legal right of every citizen. However, as a former politician the first president of Kazakhstan doesn’t intervene in political affairs,» said Ashimbayev.

As the official noted, the Constitution now regulates all these issues.

«We do not ask advice from the first president. This is not an obligation for us. Currently, the activities of all three branches of power, all state agencies are...