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According to Erulan Zhamaubayev, minister of finance the government is going to allocate about $36.8 million to conduct the country-wide referendum. The main goal of the plebiscite is to know what people think about the amendments to the Constitution of Kazakhstan.

«We are going to allocate $36,817,600 from the state budget to cover costs of the upcoming constitutional referendum. The final figures were given to us by the Central Election Commission. The government has taken a respective decision and the funds will be allocated,» Zhamaubayev said.

On May 5, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the law on amendments to the Constitutional...

According to Forbes Kazakhstan, Dariga Nazarbayeva is back on the list of 50 richest businessmen in Kazakhstan. The daughter of the first country’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev is ranked 13th with a fortune of $584 million.

Dariga Nazarbayeva was on the Forbes Kazakhstan List twice in 2012 and 2013. She was also ranked 13th at that time, although her fortune back then was bigger – $593 and $595 million respectively.

Nazarbayeva and her son Nurali Aliyev (26th in the rating) own Europe Plus Kazakhstan. Through this company, they also control shares in Radiocity radio station and NTK TV channel. Among other...

According to news reports from Baikonur Cosmodrome, local authorities detained Benjamin Rich from the U.K and Alina Tseliupa from Belarus as they had tried to penetrate the closed area near Site No. 112 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They were charged with unsanctioned entry to a guarded site, an administrative offense that was punished with a fine of about $74, and driven out of town.

The information about the incident went viral when Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, a space agency in Russia, posted the news on Telegram. According to Rogozin, both foreigners have been put in custody while...

More than 15,000 Kazakhstanis, who work in the non-alcohol beverage industry may lose their jobs because of the shortage of sugar in the country, according to the association.

Now the organization is trying to catch the attention of the government to the risks that the entire industry currently faces. Many Kazakhstani sugar producers can’t keep up with the demand. They sell sugar by limited parties and only to those who have made a full payment while many beverage producers struggle with a lack of liquidity. At the same time, sugar prices are going up. For example, over the past several...

I’ve always pursued an atmosphere of trust around myself and I am doing so because of several reasons.

First, trust is the very foundation for my business. My clients trust me because they give our company their money, often quite a significant part of their savings. If I lose their trust, I lose my business. This lesson I’ve learned since the very start of my career as an entrepreneur.

Second, as a businessman and head of a big company, I do not doubt that there are loads of benefits when people you work with trust you. People, who work in...

A private bailiff has called out a distrained property of Azia Avto in Ust-Kamenogorsk from an auction. The auction was initiated to sell the production site of the company and pay off its debt to Jusan Bank. The auction was canceled when the court received a letter of complaint from Anatoly Balushkin, a founder of Azia Avto.

According to data from a bailiff, the starting price of the manufacturing site was about $11.8 million. To take part in the auction its participants were also obliged to pay $594,347 as a security deposit.

The authorities cited Balushkin’s letter of complaint as...

In the past several years, companies that specialize in delivering goods from IKEA shops in Russia to Kazakhstan, where IKEA has no official shops, became so popular that these companies started to open big shops where every product they sell was from IKEA. On March 4, IKEA suspended the work of its shops in Russia because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As a result, Kazakhstani businesses that brought IKEA products to Kazakhstan from Novosibirsk, Omsk, Ufa and Samara now have to find alternative sources of similar goods.

In fact, Kazakhstani services that deliver IKEA goods stopped accepting orders right...

As the press service of the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructural Development reported, Kazakhstani authorities have finished the investigation into the plane crash that occurred on December 27, 2019.

The final report on the results of the investigation was coordinated with the Dutch Safety Board and the Interstate Aviation Committee.

«Our commission found out that the incident with Bek Air airline’s plane resulted from asymmetrical damage to the plane’s wings bearing capacity during its attempt to take off. As a result, the plane crashed a moment after its takeoff; under its own inertia the plane kept moving and hit a...

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan wants the amendments to the Constitution to be approved by the plebiscite. He’s made this statement today during the meeting of the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan.

The president noted that the amendments are going to be applied to one-third of the Constitution. These amendments have already been sent to the Constitutional Council which has to review them.

Throughout the history of modern Kazakhstan, there was only one referendum in 1995, when the current Constitution was adopted.

«We have a constitutional law on a national referendum which has never been applied in practice even...

In this op-ed Timur Turlov, СЕО of Freedom Holding Corp. shares his vision of why it is so important that the National Bank continues to take relevant actions in the future.

On Monday the National Bank of Kazakhstan raised the base rate from 13.50% to 14.00%. That is the sixth time the regulator has raised the rate over the past ten months. Last July the base rate was at 9.00%.

The regulator’s decision is based on standard assumptions. First, the inflation rate in Kazakhstan is still growing. In March, consumer prices soared by 12.0% while food inflation reached 15.0%. The...

Bio labs in Kazakhstan are involved in the research and development of drugs against highly contagious infections and are financed from the state budget, according to Akhylbek Kurishbayev, member of the Senate, the upper house of the parliament in Kazakhstan.

As the senator noted, none of these labs are recipients of foreign grants or act as a workplace for foreign specialists.

These laboratories are developing diagnosis and preventive drugs against highly contagious strains of second and third categories. That means that they do not work with highly dangerous viruses from the first category.

None of these laboratories are secret or...

The lower house of the Kazakhstani parliament Mazhilis has approved a new draft law that is aimed at improving the abilities of people with special needs to go around the city when they want to. According to Elnur Beysenbayev, deputy of the Mazhilis, the new law requires taxi companies to have more invalid cars for people with disabilities.

«This draft law is suggesting one novelty. Now any taxi company has to have one invalid car per every ten vehicles in its fleet. So far, the current legislation requires taxi companies to have one handicap-accessible car per 30 regular vehicles. The...

Erlan Koshanov, head of the ruling political party in Kazakhstan Amanat and speaker of the Mazhilis, is not going to take part in future presidential elections.

«I’ve never thought about that and do not plan to take part in the presidential elections,» he said while being asked about future elections.

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev won the presidential elections in June 2019. His term expires in 2024. On April 26, at the urgent meeting of the Amanat political party, Tokayev resigned from the position of the party’s chairman and quit the party. He suggested the candidacy of Erlan Koshanov, speaker of the Mazhilis...

According to the press service of the Ministry of Defense, the agency changed top executives of the company. Moreover, it has initiated the opening of a criminal case to investigate funds embezzlement in the company.

«As the only shareholder of Askeri Kurylys (the company is a parent entity for Askeri Kurylys Astana), the Ministry of Defense has decided to discharge top managers of the company and to hire a new team,» the press service reported.

As the ministry noted, the defense officials had several meetings with the company’s representatives. Military officials wanted the company to pay off its debts; they...

Ural Motorcycles is going to move its manufacturing to Petropavlovsk, North Kazakhstan, reported Russian newswire Lenta.ru citing Ilya Khait, CEO of the company.

As the CEO of Ural Motorcycles said, the manufacturing site in Irbit, the Sverdlovsk region of Russia faces a shortage of spare parts because of international sanctions. Foreign customers have also been banned from buying Russian vehicles. Given that key markets for the Ural were Western countries, including the U.S.,  this decision has had a serious impact on the company. The statement of Khait has been published on the official channel of the company on YouTube.

However...

The Ministry of Digital Development has decided to provide public services for foreign IT specialists based on the one-stop principle.

Now any foreign IT specialist can obtain any public services based on the one-stop principle in the Expat Center of the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC). For example, foreigners can now easily obtain an individual identification number, register in a state database for mobile services; get a digital signature; register a company; open a bank account; get residence permission or even buy a local SIM card.

According to Bagdat Musin, minister of digital development, innovations and aerospace industry the development...

As the press service of the Financial Monitoring Agency reported, Madi Shokey, a former chief financial officer in Kcell Solutions has been sentenced to seven years in jail for embezzlement.

Along with a jail sentence, Shokey has also lost the right to hold executive positions with financial responsibility for ten years.

In December 2021, it was announced that Shokey is accused of embezzlement of $1 million. He wasted all that money on betting companies.

The security service of Kcell had launched its investigation and transferred its results to law enforcement agencies.

Kcell Solutions, where Shokey used to work, was established...

Today on April 26, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced that has quit the Amanat political party. He had promised to do so back in January.

«It is time to turn it into reality. Starting from today I am no longer chairman of the Amanat party; I’ve decided to quit,» he said.

The president believes that this may have symbolic significance.

At the time, while talking about the new chairman of the party, Tokayev suggested the candidacy of Erlan Koshanov, which has been supported.

On February 1, Koshanov was appointed as the new chairman of the Mazhilis. Erlan Koshanov was born in...

On April 25, 2022, the National Bank of Kazakhstan decided to raise the base rate from 13.5% to 14% with a percentage corridor of +/-1 p.p. The standing lending facility rate is now 15% while the standing facility rate for liquidity withdrawal is 13%.

The regulator said that this decision is based on the strong intention to prevent inflation amid rising geopolitical risks and a global price surge that affects Kazakhstan as much as many other countries in the world. On the other hand, for three years in a row fiscal boost has been one of the main drivers of...

The Anti-corruption Agency of Kazakhstan has launched a pre-trial investigation into the activities of Nurlan Masimov, former head of the police department of the Pavlodar region. He left the region right after resigning from his position as the chief of the local police. Law enforcement officials believe that he might be involved in bribery.

The examining court of the region approved his detention, so the police have issued a wanted notice for Masimov. As the agency said, the final decision about the former police officer must be taken by the courts after a full-scale investigation.

According to open-source information, Nurlan...

On April 21, the upper chamber of Kazakhstan’s parliament Senate ratified the agreement between the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Turkic Academy. This document regulates all the issues linked to the operation of the academy on Kazakhstani soil.

According to Askhat Aymagambetov, minister of education and science in Kazakhstan, the agreement is drawing a line under issues such as the status, privileges and immunity of the Turkic Academy, its property and staff in Kazakhstan. Members of the organization are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and Azerbaijan while Hungary has the status of observer.

«Due to the fact that the...

Founder and majority shareholder of the international investment group Freedom Holding Corp Timur Turlov said in an interview with Kursiv.media that he is going to get naturalized in Kazakhstan.

According to Mr. Turlov, he’s already informed the Russian consulate about his intention to quit his Russian citizenship. He is going to take a similar move toward the island nation Saint Kitts and Nevis, where he obtained citizenship under the country’s investment program. The renunciation of nationality in any other country is the key requirement of Kazakhstan for those who want to be naturalized here. As Turlov highlighted, he decided to...

The first vice minister of national economy Timur Zhaksylykov said that there are two options for a possible deal with the sale of Russian bank subsidiaries in Kazakhstan.

The first option is a direct sale of loan portfolios of the Russian subsidiaries with a discount. On April 13, 2022, Halyk Bank already bought a part of the retail loan portfolio of Sberbank of $726 million. This deal covered car loans, issued within a preferential loans program; collateral-free loans; urgent cash loans and mortgage loans. As of April 1, the loan portfolio of Sber was about $2.4 billion.

«Probably some Russian...

According to the bank’s representatives, the negotiations between the bank and a potential buyer have reached a final stage and the deal may be finished within days.

On April 11, Andrey Timchenko, CEO of Alfa Bank Kazakhstan said that the entity is going to sell its business in the country and negotiate with potential investors. He also mentioned that about a dozen different investors examined the bank’s books.

Responding to a request by Kursiv.media, the bank said that the negotiations with investors have reached a final stage. «We are going to announce a deal within days,» reported the press service...