News

The volume of investments to the capital stock of Kazakhstan’s real economy (mining industry is excluded) increased last year by 9.5%. Foreign direct investments rose almost 50% over the nine months of 2021 and reached $18.8 billion.

Over 11 months of the last year, the external turnover in Kazakhstan rose by 15.4% and reached $91.4 billion. The country increased the export of goods by 25% to $54.5 billion; the volume of imported goods increased by 4.2% to $37 billion.

This year Kazakhstan has to reach a GDP growth of not less than 4% to guarantee the steady growth of the...

As the ministry informed, some local media sources reported collective appeals to the government by workers of service companies such as Burgylau, West Oil Software, Caspian Food and Buzachi Trans Kurylys as they want the government to nationalize their companies.

However, the Ministry of Energy said that there is no plan to nationalize any service company. Moreover, the government wants to sell a range of state-owned and quasi-state companies. According to the privatization plan, Samruk Kazyna, the state-owned holding which controls dozens of other businesses run by the government, is going to sell 40 entities over 2021-2025.

President Tokayev brought up the topic of land during a meeting with members of the government.

As he noted the maximal size of land parcels in different regions has been approved by local legislative bodies (maslikhats) with no solid science-based justification: 98,000 hectares in the Atyrau region, 96,000 hectares in the Almaty region and 69,000 in the East Kazakhstan region.

«Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture has developed a draft rule that allows possessing a land parcel up to 98,000 hectares. It seems to me as an attempt to nail down the situation when a handful of people...

As the official reported to the government, despite volatility on the markets the National Fund was able to get a yield of 4.2% ($2.3 billion) last year.

This year the National Bank is going to shift to a well-balanced strategy of assets allocation as well as introduce a new protective mechanism to minimize possible losses because of stock market fluctuations, said Pirmatov.

Last year the country’s gold reserves lost $1.3 billion and dropped to $34 billion in total. This decrease was driven by the withdrawal of about $1.2 billion of foreign currency to serve the state debt, support currency interventions...

During their meeting with the government, Satkaliyev said that the fund has already reduced the number of employees in its headquarters twofold: from 248 to 124 people. Moreover, the holding has reduced the number of executives to five positions and the number of subsidiaries from 27 to 18. As a result, Samruk-Kazyna reported $5 million worth of economic impact.

To save more money, the fund has recommended its companies to cut personnel in their headquarters twofold including employees (from 2,786 to 1,393), foreign specialists (from 47 to 24) and foreign members of the boards (from 23 to 14). It is...

According to Olzhas Kizatov, head of the banking control department in the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market, last year the banking sector beefed up its loan portfolio by $46.7 billion (28%). The number of nonperforming loans decreased during the last year from 6.9% to 3.3% because of the write-off of bad corporate loans for $2 billion. 

Last year was very productive for the entire banking sector in Kazakhstan. The net revenue of banks increased by 78% and reached $3 billion. The deposit base increased by $10.4 billion (21%) and reached $60 billion last year, including...

The index of children’s well-being is necessary for proper assessment of children’s status in Kazakhstan’s society as well as to estimate the level of efficiency of the national policy in this sphere.

The index consists of four key components: Child, Family and Society, National policy and Well-being of the country. To gather the information needed for the index, the ministry is going to take data from open sources such as the Bureau of National Statistics, Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Ecology. Also, the index will include...

Even before Erbolat Dosaev enters the office of the Almaty mayor, some people have started to collect signs under the petition aimed at discharging Dosaev from the new position. They want the mayor to be elected through open and transparent elections.

As of February 4, there were about 30,000 signatures under the petition. However, according to Yuriy Masanov, a journalist from Kazakhstan the website where the petition has been uploaded raises some questions as it’s registered in Russia and almost anyone can click on a button to pretend the signature under the petition was made.

Former Almaty mayor Bakytzhan Sagintayev...

As the agency reported it is going to think about the possibility of the new tax.

For example, the government is keen to impose an additional tax on owners of luxury vehicles such as Aston Martin, Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati. Any benefits for such cars must be excluded.

Among other luxury items are fancy jets, sailboats and real estate in big cities and popular resorts. All these things might face increasing taxes.

Niyazov was responsible for liquid gas supplies in the region. Now he is charged with abuse of power. In early January the meeting against liquid gas price increase was organized in the region. Right after the riots that broke out across the entire country, several top officials including the deputy energy minister and executives of electronic trading platforms have been arrested. They are charged with an unreasonable liquid gas price increase in the Mangystau region.

Once the winner is decided, he should deposit a guarantee fee of $1.9 million and then renovate all the airport’s equipment and facilities including its parking ramp.

The owner of the Shymkent airport’s shares is the Department of Finances of the city of Shymkent. The market value of the shares is the difference between assets ($14.3 million) and liabilities ($1.2 million). In 2021 the airport earned $7.8 million with 576,916 of net revenue. In October 2020, the airport’s owner had already tried to sell the asset. However, there were no applicants for the bidding even though the market value of...

As the official noted, the removal of these intermediate sellers from fuel trading is a top priority task for improving the system of fuel production and distribution.

«We have to limit intermediate sellers’ revenue to avoid a sharp prices increase. Also, no one except those sellers who own oil storage facilities, I mean put serious money into this and build oil storage depots, not just rent them, must be allowed to act as bulk suppliers,» he said.

Moreover, it is expected, that the only participants of stock trading with fuel will be owners of gas stations...

As the ministry’s press service reported there are three programs of $524 million worth in total scheduled for 2022. One of these projects is one GigaWatt solar power station, which has been actively developed with help of ADB.

The bank is also going to cooperate with the private sector in Uzbekistan. For example, ADB plans to provide financial resources to local banks, road infrastructure construction projects, education sphere, healthcare system and will support female entrepreneurship. In 2020 Uzbekistan received $162 million from the ADB to improve railroad infrastructure in the western part of the country to boost local tourism.

According to the foreign ministry, Kazakhstan «condemns any possible cases of disproportionate use of force, illegal detention, torture and mistreatment of detainees in custody» while the president said many times that an investigation into the riots must be unbiased and fully comply with the law.

«Any information about illegal detention and mistreatment in custody will be a subject for scrupulous investigation. The law enforcement bodies have been checking all complaints they’ve received,» the ministry said.

Right after the unrest, the government established a hotline. People who suffered from police brutality or mistreatment can give a call and complain. So far...

While introducing Pirmatov to the Senate the first deputy head of the president’s office Timur Suleimenov said that Kazatomprom showed excellent financial results under Pirmatov’s supervision.

«Under Galymzhan Pirmatov’s supervision the national company of Kazatomprom has gone public. The initial public offering was organized at the Astana International Financial Center. Dear deputies, I assume that the professional background and personal qualities of Galymzhan Pirmatov are a good basis to work on the entire scope of tasks and goals the National Bank is dealing with. Please, support his candidacy,» he said.

According to Suleimenov, the new head of...

While speaking about corruption in tax and customs agencies Tokayev noted that the difference between Chinese and Kazakhstan’s statistics reached $5.7 billion in 2021. The main reason for that is contraband.

«About 90% of those who are engaged in foreign trade have to deal with corruption. More than 45% of entrepreneurs were forced to pass money under the table to customs officials. The Anti-Corruption Agency has already revealed three corrupted customs posts in the West Kazakhstan region. But we have 49 customs posts all over the country. It means that bribery in the customs and transport spheres...

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev highlighted that he is disappointed with such organizations.

«…We have to prevent them from taking part in the state procurement. Often their proposals are too attractive thanks to low prices but in reality, it’s nothing more than a trick. We have to be careful, to think about every offer,» he said.

This is why big international companies so rarely participate in bidding by the state agencies in Kazakhstan, said the president. He’s ordered the government to reconsider how the procurement system works in the public and quasi-public sectors in the country.

According to Tokaev...

It is assumed that the teaching and learning process in the NKU will be based on the UA standards while fully complying with the national legislation of Kazakhstan. The studying process is going to start in September 2022 and will be based on a dual-degree program and joint research with English as the prime language of teaching and learning. The ministry requires that at least 30% of the NKU teachers must be foreign professors and business representatives. They will teach local students several majors including education, IT, engineering and agricultural technology.

In turn, Kazakhstan’s ministry of education is going to...

According to the authors of the suggestions, there are about 1.5 million people in Kazakhstan who have low incomes. However, only 998,000 of them are recipients of the targeted social support. The deputies believe that the reason this has happened is an incorrect estimation of poor people in the country.

Even though Kazakhstan’s GDP has gradually grown for years, the income poverty line has remained the same. Along with individual income tax removal for low-income citizens, the Nur Otan deputies have offered to raise the income poverty line to make it meet the current GDP. They also want to combine...

According to the Mazhilis press service, Koshanov’s candidacy was nominated by Erlan Sairov, a deputy of the chamber.

«Erlan Koshanov has been elected as the new chairman of Mazhilis through secret ballot procedure. To ensure that the voting complies with official procedures, the chamber created a vote count panel. Voting booths and glassy ballot boxes were brought to the Mazhilis. The new speaker of the Mazhilis Erlan Koshanov expressed his gratitude to all deputies for their trust,» the official statement said.

The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Kazakhstan has confirmed that Nurlan Nigmatulin, who had served as...

Until this new nomination, Erbolat Dosaev was head of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, having worked there since 2019.

On January 13, a petition to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev appeared at the otinish.kz website. Residents of Almaty asked the president to discharge Bakytzhan Sagintayev from the office of Almaty mayor. As of January 17, about 25,000 people signed that petition. In the document, people blamed the former mayor for avoiding the public space during the unrest; he didn’t appear in the public until January 8 and did nothing to support people and prop up their morale during those days in early...

According to the KazMunaiGaz company’s press service, KazMunaiGaz, Ozenmunaigaz and KMG Engineering have been conducting the detailed exploration program of Uzen since 2017.

Over 2017-2021 the partners implemented a high-definition 3D seismic survey of the site. They reexamined more than 7,500 oil wells here, reassessed a geological concept of the site and updated the 3D model of its geology.

As a result, the explored oil stockpile of Uzen is now bigger by 8% or 39.9 million tons if compared to those earlier figures. At the end of 2021, this additional volume of oil was officially included in the list of...

The company is going to operate flights between Frankfurt and Almaty twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays and on Almaty-Nur-Sultan-Frankfurt route on Tuesdays and   Fridays.

As Lufthansa noted, all these flights will meet sanitary and epidemiologic requirements and will be conducted in accordance with the schedule the company has already published on its website.

Lufthansa has temporarily stopped air travel to Kazakhstan due to the riot in Almaty and some other cities of the country in early January this year.

Over the past decade, the ramp-up of the output of the domestic cement industry was about 5.5% on average. However, in 2020-2021 the industry reported intensification of the output growth by 10.4% and 15.4% respectively.

According to the market participants, the main reasons for the production ramp-up are a buzz in the construction and stable demand for high-quality cement from Kazakhstan in neighboring markets.

«The key driver of the increase in output is a surge in construction in Kazakhstan. Cement consumption spiked by 25% in 2021 all over the country. Another driver of the growth is stable demand for Kazakhstan’s...