Before wrapping up his four-day visit to China on Sept. 3, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev met with Shen Yanfeng, head of the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). This move was widely interpreted as Tashkent exploring alternatives should its tentative nuclear deal with Russia’s Rosatom stall, Eurasianet.org reported. Russia’s Rosatom is…
Gold surged to another record high on Wednesday, breaking through $3,500 an ounce as traders increasingly bet on the Fed cutting rates and worried about growing political and trade tensions, according to Reuters. The precious metal reached $3,546.99 before settling at $3,534.88. Furthermore, U.S. gold futures for December delivery climbed…
Anthropic, an artificial intelligence (AI) safety and research company founded by former OpenAI research executives including CEO Dario Amodei, reported closing a $13 billion funding round on Sept. 2, according to CNBC. The company’s valuation rose to $183 billion, marking nearly a threefold increase since its previous raise in March…
Kraft Heinz announced Tuesday that it will split into two publicly traded companies in 2026, marking the end of its troubled decade-long merger, according to CNN. One new company will house faster-growing brands like Heinz ketchup, Kraft Mac & Cheese, and Philadelphia cream cheese. The other will focus on slower-performing…
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov announced the launch of an underground gold mining project at Kumtor, Central Asia’s largest gold mine, as reported by Interfax Kazakhstan. «The underground gold mining project is set to operate for 17 years, with geological reserves of 147 tons of gold officially added to the national…
A recent environmental report shows China added more coal power plant capacity in the first half of 2025 than in any year since 2016, despite having significant renewable resources, according to DW.com, citing the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM). The findings…
Fall traditionally revives financial markets: the companies publish financial reports, investors revise their portfolios and stock prices gain fresh momentum. Analysts at Freedom Broker have highlighted key investment ideas for Kazakhstan and global markets. Kazakhstan’s market One of the fall’s wild cards is the Kazakhstan Electricity Grid Operating Company…
KazMunayGas (KMG), Kazakhstan’s national oil company, reported revenue of 4.5 trillion tenge for the first six months of 2025 (about $8.8 billion at the period’s average exchange rate), up 6.2% year-on-year (YoY). Growth was driven by higher processing volumes at KMG International refineries and the weakening of the tenge, which…
About 50% of regular deposits are under $27,000, according to the Kazakhstan Deposit Insurance Fund (KDIF). According to the fund’s methodology, there are three types of retail deposits denominated in tenge: mass (up to 15 million tenge), medium (from 15 million to 50 million tenge) and large (over 50 million…
Kazakhstan’s processing industry has shown steady growth, with output reaching approximately $29.6 billion in the first seven months of 2025. According to the Ministry of Industry and Construction, the processing industry grew by 6.1%, with its share in the country’s economy reaching 13.9% over the period from January to July…
Kazakhstan’s largest gold producer, Kazzinc, 70.2% of which is owned by Switzerland-based Glencore, reduced zinc production from its own sources to 61,800 tons in the first six months of 2025, down 3% year-on-year (YoY), according to Glencore’s report. Meanwhile, zinc in concentrate production rose by 13% to 37,200 tons, while…
BNK Commercial Bank — formerly the microfinance organization BNK Finance Kazakhstan and recently transformed into a bank — has received a written directive from Kazakhstan’s Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (ARDFM) for violating prudential ratios, the agency reported. The former MFO received its banking license on…
Kazakh companies face double taxation and full veterinary, sanitary and customs checks when exporting goods to other Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) members, Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov said at the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council meeting in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan. «In a number of cases, unimpeded transit through the territory of EEU member states…
In the first six months of 2025, Lotte Rakhat Confectionery reported a profit of about $3.9 million, down 53.4%, or $4.4 million, from the same period last year, according to the company’s filing on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) website. The drop was largely due to a 23.4% fall in…
Investment management company Fonte Capital has announced the listing of the Fonte Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) on the Astana International Exchange (AIX), according to a statement on the company’s website. An ETF is an exchange-traded investment fund that is traded in a way similar to ordinary shares. Typically, it…
Kazakhstan has received $365 million in dividends from Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) that had been frozen in Luxembourg, Finance Minister Madi Takiyev said at a recent government briefing. «This year, we received $365 million in dividends for previous years,» Takiyev said. «For 2024, the financial statements have just been completed;…
Mobile rates for Altel and Tele2 customers in Kazakhstan are off-limits to government scrutiny until the end of 2026, following a court decision tied to an international agreement with Qatar. Mobile Telecom-Service (MTS), which owns the Altel and Tele2 brands, won its case in the Almaty Court of Appeal, which…
The co-founder of the Save the Caspian Sea movement, Vadim Ni, has filed a lawsuit against Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy, demanding that the production sharing agreements for the country’s largest oil projects — Kashagan, Tengiz and Karachaganak — be made public. Ni told Kursiv.media that the case has already reached…
Analysts at the Association of Financiers of Kazakhstan (AFK) have significantly raised their one-year forecast for the dollar to 573 tenge, up from 548.5 in the previous outlook — a deterioration of 24.5 tenge for the local currency, according to an AFK statement. They have also slightly downgraded their forecast…
Kazakhstan’s net international reserves, which include gold and foreign exchange assets, rose in July for the first time in two months, increasing 1.45% from the previous month to $50.3 billion, according to data from the National Bank. Reserves are up 15.54% since the start of the year. Gross international reserves…
Kazakhstan is turning to cutting-edge technology to tackle inflation, deploying a powerful supercomputer to analyze price data and monitor commodity flows across the country in real time. Ablaikhan Ospanov, acting chairman of Kazakhtelecom, the national telecommunications operator, announced at a recent government meeting that the company’s supercomputer will be used…
KMG PetroChem, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s national oil and gas company KazMunayGas (KMG), has signed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with Tecnimont S.p.A. of Italy and Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCIC) of Lebanon for the construction of a gas separation facility (GSF) at the Tengiz field, KMG announced.…
KMF, Kazakhstan’s largest microfinance organization (MFO), has reregistered as a bank and changed its name to KMF Bank, according to a statement published on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) website. The company received a re-registration certificate on Aug. 1, 2025. From July 30 to Aug. 3, the MFO suspended all…
Kazakh investors can now buy shares in major American companies such as Amazon and Google for as little as $1, thanks to a new feature rolled out in the Tabys app by the Astana International Exchange (AIX), according to the Kazakhstan Association of Minority Shareholders (QAMS). The Tabys app, in…
