News

Kazakhstani authorities will fine Kazakhtelecom and Air Astana for not doing enough to keep the personal data of Kazakhstanis safe. The two companies will be obliged to pay $825 in fines and correct the violations within the year.

The context. In February, unidentified hackers published data from iSoon (or Anxun), a Chinese contractor for the Ministry of Public Security of China. According to that information, a group of Chinese hackers for two years had maintained access to critical infrastructure of Kazakhstani mobile operators and likely to personal data of Kazakhstanis.

Over the period from 2019 to 2020, beeline.kz lost...

A group of foreign investors will build an international cargo-passenger airport at the territory of the Khorgos – Eastern Gate special economic zone in the Zhetysu region of Kazakhstan, according to the press service of the regional administration. The project is expected to be implemented by SKYMAX TECHNOLOGIES and The Hansa Consortium, a German company that will invest $557 million in this project.

The new airport will have a capacity of 500 passengers per hour and 50,000 tons of cargo. The project is expected to be implemented in three stages and create 700 new jobs.

The special economic zone includes...

Sany Group Co. Ltd, a Chinese industrial and construction company, is considering constructing a new facility in Kazakhstan to assemble its towers, blades and nacelles for wind turbines. This statement was made after President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev met with Xiang Wenbo, a rotating chairman of Sany Group Co. Ltd. The Chinese company is already constructing a one-gigawatt wind power station in Kazakhstan.

The two sides have discussed a wide range of issues related to joint implementation of green energy projects. For instance, Kazakhstan wants to launch the manufacturing of special machinery and wind turbine components in conjunction with the Chinese investor.

According to the Ministry of Labor of Kyrgyzstan, the extremists are looking for recruits for their activities among Kyrgyzstanis living in Russia. The agency called for people to remain unprovoked.

As Kyrgyz authorities reported, many Kyrgyzstanis in Russia have started to receive «job offers» via social media and messengers as extremists are trying to involve them in terrorist activities in Russia. The Ministry of Labor called for people to stay calm, ignore job offers through social networks, avoid participating in any campaigns and keep an eye on their children.

«We are urging people to remember that involvement in...

According to President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the global economy needs a new paradigm for future development amidst trade issues and slowed growth of the global GDP. He also noted that Asia’s share in the global GDP will increase this year to 60%. So far, the region accounts for 53% of the world’s GDP. As he highlighted during his speech in China at the Boao Forum for Asia, all these and other factors suggest that the Asian Renaissance is coming.

Tokayev blamed trade disputes and protectionism policies across the world for global supply chain disruption, a slowdown of global growth...

Wabtec, an American industrial company, may open an engineering center in Kazakhstan, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan. The agency made this statement after Wabtec executives met with Foreign Minister Murat Nurtleu in Washington, D.C.

«During the meeting, the two sides discussed perspectives of bilateral cooperation in the sphere of transport and industry, such as opening an engineering center in Kazakhstan and providing students of the Bolashak program with the opportunity to be interns at the company,» the foreign ministry said.

In December 2023, Wabtec acquired a 50% stake in Lokomotiv Kyrastyru Zauyty worth...

Kazakhstani stock exchanges are eager to join Tabadul, a platform designed for electronic information exchange. This might help Kazakhstani businesses attract capital from investors from the UAE and other Persian Gulf nations, according to the National Bank of Kazakhstan.

Tabadul is a digital platform for trading between member exchanges, established by the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange.

Its members are the Bahrain Bourse and the Muskat Stock Exchange (Oman). Retail investors can trade through licensed brokers in both markets.

In the UAE, the delegations of the National Bank and the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (ARDFM) met...

Pratt & Whitney, an American aircraft engine manufacturer, has promised to reimburse Air Astana expenditures related to acquiring aircraft engines as the two companies signed a long-term agreement.

«A set of agreements with Pratt & Whitney that includes long-term contracts on technical maintenance are going to solve the problem of our costs,» Air Astana said in a statement. The company hasn’t revealed any financial details, though.

The context. In late January, analysts of Halyk Finance said that Air Astana could pull 17 out of 49 aircraft out of operation due to flaws in aircraft engines produced by...

Uzum, a so-called “Uzbek Amazon” that engages in online retail trade, fintech and food delivery, has become the first unicorn (a company with a market value of more than $1 billion) in Uzbekistan as it raised $114 million in investments. After the company raised new investments, its market value rose to $1.16 billion according to Techcrunch.

In 2020, there were around 1,200 startups in Uzbekistan. About 85% of them were at the initial stage of fundraising. The Asian Development Bank believes that the vast majority of startups on the market were fintech services (with a market share of 30%) and...

Orbis Kazakhstan is going to launch a new car manufacturing facility in Almaty to produce vehicles of the Chinese brand KAIYI, the company’s press service said in a statement. President of Orbis Kazakhstan Suhrab Makhmudov and General Manager of Yibin Kaiyi Auto Gao Lei signed the corresponding agreement on March 26.

The construction of the automotive factory is expected to start in the second quarter of 2024 in the industrial zone of Almaty. The facility has a capacity of 80,000 cars per year and will create more than 1,500 new jobs.

According to the contract, the Chinese automaker will provide...

SDU University near Almaty has conducted a groundbreaking ceremony to construct a new campus that will be built with the support of Freedom Holding Corp. The company will allocate more than $3.9 million for the project.

«High-quality education is one of the pillars of a progressive society. By joining this initiative, we are proving that we are ready to support and facilitate the comprehensive growth and development of the current and future generations of the people of Kazakhstan. In our holding, we fully understand how big the role of the business is in the social life of the...

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed a law designed to counter the transfer pricing and strengthen state control over related-party transactions. The document also introduces changes and amendments to several other legal acts, the president’s office said on Telegram.

Transfer pricing is a practice of transferring a company’s revenue to jurisdictions with many tax benefits through transactions with entities that are part of the same larger enterprise. These transactions are also called related-party transactions. Even though these transactions aren’t necessarily illegal, businesses usually use them to artificially boost the revenue of an offshore company and increase the costs of a parent...

According to Minister of Agriculture of Kazakhstan Aidarbek Saparov, Kazakhstan is going to cut the total area of wheat agriculture and switch to oil and forage crops.

This year, the country plans to sow various crops at 23.8 million hectares, which is 209,600 hectares less than in 2023. The area of wheat crops will decrease by 429,200 hectares to 13.3 million hectares compared to last year. The ministry intends to switch focus to the cultivation of other socially important and highly profitable crops.

According to data from regional authorities, the area under oil crops will be increased by 385,700 hectares...

KazMunayGas (KMG) has no plans for privatization of any of its three refinery plans in Atyrau, Pavlodar and Shymkent, according to Dmitry Makeev, deputy head of the company.

«We’ve noticed today that some media outlets and social networks have spread information about the alleged privatization of the Atyrau and Pavlodar refineries. Let us be clear, this information has nothing to do with reality. There were no negotiations of this kind. Both refineries are operating as usual,» the company said in a statement.

Several Kazakhstani media outlets reported that the government was going to sell KMG’s shares in...

The government of Uzbekistan is going to sell at least three state-owned banks, according to Frank Media, citing the March survey by Fitch Ratings. Once the deal is completed, the share of private banks in Uzbekistan will increase from 32% (as of late 2023) to 60%.

The strategic decision to sell shares in six Uzbekistani state-owned banks – Ipoteka-Bank, Uzpromstroybank (O’zsanoatqurilishbank), Asaka, AK Alokabank, Kishlok Qurilish Bank, and Turon Bank – was made in May 2020. After that, the Hungarian OTP Bank became the major stakeholder in Ipoteka-Bank, the fifth biggest bank in Uzbekistan.

The survey by Fitch says that...

The Ministry of Tourism of Kazakhstan has allocated $107,560 for marketing on popular Chinese social platforms such as WeChat and Weibo to lure more tourists to the country. A subcontractor should create interesting content for the Chinese users by the end of this year.

According to open data on public procurements, the ministry has signed a contract with Kazakh Tourism, the national company in the tourism sphere, worth $107,560. This money will pay for services related to the development of a media plan and the creation of two posts per month for WeChat and Weibo in order to reach at...

Kazakhstani swordsmen have obtained a pass to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. It will be the first Olympics when Kazakhstani sportsmen will perform as a full team, according to the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Kazakhstan.

In the battle for Olympic qualification, Kazakhstani athletes competed against their counterparts from South Korea, who were trying to get a spot in the World Cup in Tbilisi.

«In eightfinal, South Korea lost to Czechia and ended their participation in the World Cup in Tbilisi. Prior to the team tournament, our team had a lead of 26 points over their South...

According to a draft regulation by the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (ARDFM), commercial banks must conduct biometric identification of customers before issuing them an online loan. The document will be available on legalacts.gov.kz for public consideration until April 8, 2024.

«Before signing an agreement of a banking loan, a bank should conduct online biometric identification of a client with the help of the Identification Data Exchange Center or biometric data obtained through a bank’s devices,» the draft document said.

A client should execute a set of actions to ensure that biometric data...

The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) is going to invest $1 billion by the end of the year. This statement followed a meeting between Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Olzhas Bektenov and Nikolai Podguzov, head of the EDB, who discussed the implementation of infrastructural projects and perspectives of bilateral cooperation in the sphere of investment.

This year the two sides are going to focus on such sectors as transport, industry, energy, environment, agricultural complex, construction and modernization of social infrastructure.

As Bektenov underscored, Kazakhstan needs to attract money to those sectors that were highlighted by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev: roads, housing construction, modernization...

According to Minister of Health of Kazakhstan Akmaral Alnazarova, the agency she has been heading failed to get any tangible results in the sphere of digitalization despite $33 million in investments the ministry has spent over the past five years. Now, the official wants to do everything possible to improve the ministry’s digital infrastructure and complete the current projects in this area by the end of 2024.

«Digitalization issues in the sphere of healthcare must be restarted. Everything must be transparent. Over the past five years, we have spent more than $33 million on this purpose and the...

According to the National Bank, the external and internal assets of Kazakhstani banks have grown by $1.3 billion and $81.5 billion, respectively. At the same time, the rate of net internal assets for the entire banking system deteriorated to minus $13.2 billion, while external assets grew by 4.1%.

The banking system of Kazakhstan

Net external assets of the banking system, which are the difference between claims and liabilities toward nonresidents in freely convertible currency (FCC) and assets of the National Fund, reached $97 billion as of February 2024. The rate grew by 4.1% from $93 billion year-on-year. The National...

The turnover between Kazakhstan and Xinjiang has risen to $20.3 billion, which accounts for 64% of the entire turnover with China, a significant increase of over 40% in the first half of 2023, according to the Ministry of Trade and Integration, citing Erkin Tuniyaz, head of Xinjiang.

«To boost trade between our countries, with Xinjiang in particular, the president ordered us to establish a chamber of commerce in Ürümqi. QazTrade, an authorized agency under the ministry is going to supervise this chamber. The chamber is expected to be a connecting link between our companies and businesses in Xinjiang...

Asian exchanges reported a 4% increase in oil prices compared to last week as analysts predict a decline in oil supply as attacks on the Russian energy infrastructure continue, according to Reuters.

As of March 18, the cost of Brent Crude futures for oil supply in May increased by $0.32 (0.4%) to $85.66 per barrel. The cost of April’s contract for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) increased by $0.40 (0.5%) to $81.44, while the cost of May’s contract for WTI rose $0.37 (0.5%) to $80.95 per barrel.

«Drone attacks against Russian refineries last week added a $2 to...

According to preliminary results of “Vote Abroad” exit polls, the current President of Russia Vladimir Putin has won 8% of the votes in Almaty. This is the worst result in Central Asia and one of the lowest in the world.

Along with the 8% of voters who supported Putin’s candidacy, Russian citizens in Almaty also voted for Vladislav Davankov (69%), who won many votes from those Russians who wanted to vote for anyone but Putin, while 14% of voters claimed that they had damaged their voting bulletins; 7% of the people refused to talk to researchers and comment on any...