News

According to the Bureau of National Statistics of Kazakhstan, the country’s foreign trade turnover reached $66.8 billion in the first half of 2024, which is 2.1% lower than in the same period in 2023. 

Although Kazakhstan expanded exports by 2.1% to $39.3 billion, imports dropped by 7.6%, reaching $27.6 billion. 

Among Kazakhstan’s key trade partners are Italy (23.6%), China (18.6%), Russia (10.9%), the Netherlands (6%), France (5.5%) and Turkey (3.9%). The first three countries on the list account for more than half of Kazakhstan’s exports (53.1%). 

Kazakhstan primarily exports crude oil and oil products (55.9%), refined copper and unprocessed...

According to the Ministry of Energy, Kazakhstan does not plan to supply its natural gas to Austria, as the European country may allegedly find itself in a situation with gas no longer coming from Russia. The ministry said this in response to Kursiv.media’s inquiry, highlighting that Kazakhstan is focused on its domestic market as local demand for natural gas rises.

According to Bloomberg, Austria «sees massive risk from a sudden stoppage of Russian natural gas flows.» These concerns arose after Ukraine seized control of a key gas transit facility inside Russia. Because of this, Austria is forced to look...

Kairat Satybaldy, the imprisoned nephew of Ex- President Nursultan Nazarbayev, will be released from prison as his sentence was replaced with a restriction of freedom. The East Kazakhstan region’s court has made the decision, citing Satybaldy’s good conduct and the return of illegally acquired assets to the state as factors influencing its ruling.

«Court No. 2 of Ust-Kamenogorsk has approved the convict’s petition and replaced the unserved part of the prison sentence with a restriction of freedom for a period of three years, three months and seven days,» the court’s statement read.

The court noted...

Kazakhstan wants to export honey, caviar, meat delicacies, high-quality spirits and other goods to Thailand. During a meeting with acting Prime Minister of Thailand and Minister of Commerce Phumtam Wechayachai, Minister of Trade and Integration of Kazakhstan Arman Shakkaliyev revealed that the country is going to expand its exports to Thailand by nearly $1 billion.

Even though it’s not clear which alcoholic beverages Kazakhstan wants to export, the range of drinks it produces is quite wide. According to the Bureau of National Statistics of Kazakhstan, from Jan. to May 2024, the country produced 3.7 million liters of cognac...

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) crashed and caught fire near Tamchy Issyk-Kul International Airport around 1:00 p.m., according to the press service of Manas International Airport, which oversees the airport.

Local residents who happened to witness the incident were the first to report the accident, assuming it was a plane crash. They took several photos and claimed to have seen something resembling a plane taking off and collapsing shortly after. The situation aroused panic among the locals, who quickly began spreading information about a possible aircraft crash.

However, Manas International Airport refuted the rumors shortly after. 

Kazakhstan has been ranked 10th in the global rating of financial threats over the first six months of 2024. The ranking is based on the percentage of users exposed to financial cyberattacks versus the total number of users who encountered malware, according to a report by Bluescreen.kz, citing Kaspersky Lab.

Trojan malware, typically delivered through malicious links sent by scammers, was responsible for 85% of all cyberattacks in Kazakhstan’s banking sector.

Other top hazards include exploits that take advantage of software security flaws, online threats from malicious web resources like URLs and IP addresses, HackTool-type threats and Trojan-downloaders capable...

The sale of Mobile Telecom Service, which operates the Tele2 and Altel brands, to Qatar-based Power International Holding is set to be completed by the end of 2024, according to the Agency for Protection and Development of Competition (APDC).

«As part of the agreement between the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the government of the State of Qatar on establishing a long-term strategic partnership for Power International Holding’s acquisition of Mobile Telecom Service LLP, we intend to finalize the sale of the telecom operator to the Qatari investor by the end of the year...

According to Education Minister of Mongolia P. Naranbayar, students in the country’s schools will learn English as the main foreign language starting from the beginning of the upcoming school season.

During a meeting devoted to curriculums for pre-school and primary education, he announced that Mongolian students will start learning English from Sept. 1 of the year.

«English has already been assigned as the main foreign language in our schools. The best way to learn a foreign language is to be in an environment where you don’t feel that you’re learning it, while repetition is the most...

Turkish Tiryaki Holding will acquire 250,000 tons of grain from Kazakhstan. The arrangement was reached during a visit of the Kazakhstani delegation led by the Minister of Agriculture Aidarbek Saparov to Turkey, the ministry’s press service reported.

Meanwhile, Tiryaki Holding is building a plant for deep grain processing in Astana. In November 2023, Kazakhstani authorities claimed that the facility would be the first production site in the CIS capable of producing 30,000 tons of glucose, 45,000 tons of fructose, 22,000 tons of fibrin, and 110,000 tons of starch per year. The final products are expected to be exported to Canada...

Sergei Tsirulnikov, a Kazakhstani record breaker, wowed the judges with his performance on America’s Got Talent. «Kazakh Batyr,» a nickname Sergei got at home, put the audience and judges in awe with his incredible power. He shared the moment on Facebook.

Tsirulnikov delivered a five-minute performance, unveiling his unique skills. These include blowing up and popping heating pads, bending horseshoes and nails and even trailing the bus with teeth and a 180-ton train with bare shoulders.

He shared his impressions on social media and announced that the judges had advanced him to the next stage with unanimous approval.

U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan Daniel Rosenblum and USAID have transferred state-of-the-art server machines to the State Revenue Committee (SRC) under Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Finance to improve the country’s customs infrastructure, the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan said in a statement on its website.  

“USAID is supplying advanced servers made by Dell Inc. of the United States to support the SRC’s new customs “Keden” IT system which replaces the outdated “Astana-1″ system. The new Keden system will reduce clearance times and enhance data security by leveraging automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence,” the embassy stated.

Rosenblum...

Kazakhstan is contemplating issuing new bonds in dollars this October. The government plans to sell around $1.5 billion worth of bonds, marking the first such issuance since 2015, according to Bloomberg sources.

The details of the bond issue will depend on market conditions and the bonds may be denominated in euros. The country’s government last issued Eurobonds in 2019. Prior to that, in 2018, the Ministry of Finance placed a 10-year bond issue in euros, the first in a European currency after two decades of favoring the dollar. This shift was influenced by the European Central Bank’s more favorable monetary...

Kazakhstan’s Agip Caspian Sea, a subsidiary of the Italian Eni, has started supplying oil to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline, which stretches through Russia, the Russian Vedomosti newspaper reported. In June, the company delivered 20,000 tons of oil to Germany, becoming the third Kazakhstani company to transport oil to Europe by this route. In turn, the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan said that these shipments would continue if the project proved to be economically viable.

«In June 2024, Agip Caspian Sea delivered 20,000 tons of oil in a test mode via the Atyrau-Samara and the Druzhba...

Tatler Magazine is entering the markets of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkey under a license issued to Kazakhstan. The corresponding arrangement was reached between Tatler Asia, one of the leading media platforms in the world, and Turlov Private Holding Ltd., a company run by Timur Turlov. The first issue of Tatler Kazakhstan will be published in December 2024.

Established in 1709 in England, Tatler is one of the oldest magazine brands on the planet. Tatler Asia was founded in 1977 and is present in nine Asian markets—Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Macau, mainland China, Taiwan and Vietnam—developing innovative...

According to Almas Kudaibergen, the chairman of the Association of Oil Service Companies of Kazakhstan, more than 80,000 skilled professionals are going to lose their jobs because of layoffs at the Tengiz oil field in 2022-2024.

«Losing people is not what we’d like to do. We are talking about 200,000 people – oil industry workers and their families. Our solution is to search for new projects. We thought of Russia first, since a lot of Kazakhstani enterprises are present there, but unfortunately, the war has put a lot of projects on pause. Another direction is...

Companies from the U.S., Germany, Italy, South Africa and South Korea plan to localize the manufacturing of oil and gas equipment in Kazakhstan. According to Yerlan Akkenzhenov, vice minister of energy, potential partners include LESER, a German valve manufacturer; Beruseal, a South African provider of leak sealing solutions, and John Crane, a U.S. manufacturer of industrial equipment.

The projects under consideration are expected to create dozens of jobs and attract $3 million in investments. Additional localization projects are set to be launched over the next three years with companies such as Hi Air Korea, a manufacturer of air conditioning and...

A new locomotive assembly factory worth $97.9 million is set to be built in Atbasar, according to the Akmola region’s administration.

The project is being implemented by the Kamkor Locomotive private enterprise in conjunction with regional authorities. According to data available on eGov.kz, the founder of Kamkor Locomotive is Kazakhstan Transport Technologies LLC, controlled by Vector of Technological Solutions LLC and Diskus Company, both registered in Russia. Vector of Technological Solutions LLC, based in Moscow, is managed by Alexei Lebedev. Diskus Company, located in Novosibirsk, is managed by Alexei Dzhulai.

A feasibility study for the plant is expected to be...

Even though the regulator softened its monetary policy cutting the base rate to 14.5% in late May, while inflation slowed to 8.4% in June, returns on Kazakhstani government securities (GS) rose by 1.5% to 2% in the second quarter of 2024 compared to the first quarter of the year. According to the National Bank’s Macro & Market Overview for international investors, this increase was largely driven by the need to finance the budget deficit and strong market participation in GS auctions.  

Demand for these securities exceeded supply by 180%, with investors showing the most interest in medium-term bonds, although...

Four new entities joined the Kazenergy association of oil and gas companies in July and August 2024, bringing the total number of members to 68. These new members represent key sectors of Kazakhstan’s economy, including hydrocarbon extraction, energy and geological engineering, according to a Kazenergy press release.

Among the new members is Kazakhoil Aktobe, a joint venture of KazMunayGas (KMG) and Caspian Investments Resources Ltd, owned by China’s Sinopec. Kazakhoil Aktobe is involved in hydrocarbon production at the Alibekmola and Kozhasai deposits in the Aktobe region. Another new member, KMG Engineering, specializes in developing geological and geophysical databases, as well...

The Ministry of Energy has drafted an order proposing an increase in marginal electricity rates for several generating companies. The draft order has been posted on the regulatory legal acts portal, signaling potential changes ahead. This follows a previous rate increase in January.

Currently, all power companies are divided into 55 groups. Notable entities among them are Ekibastuz GRES-1 and GRES-2, Eurasian Energy Corporation (a part of ERG), power plant operators in Pavlodar, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Ridder, Atyrau, Crystal Management (owned by Timur Kulibayev’s Joint Resources) and the Shulba Hydropower Plant. The Ministry plans to add five more groups to the existing...

According to the press office of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan, eight Turkish companies expressed a willingness to invest in the agricultural business of Kazakhstan.

Turkish investors are interested in projects for leguminous crops and cattle hide processing, ice cream production, and agricultural machinery manufacturing.

Businessmen from Turkey occupied in the leguminous plant processing sector intend to produce the goods with high added value — amino acids, including lysine and gluten.

Ice cream producers are looking forward to exporting their products to Russia and China. The Minister of Agriculture, Aidarbek Saparov, informed the investors that...

Kazakhstan’s arbitration claims against the North Caspian Operating Company N.V. (NCOC), the international consortium operating the Kashagan oil field, have increased to $160 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The claims, which recently rose from $150 billion to $160 billion, stem from the Kazakh government’s discovery of alleged corruption in certain deals related to Kashagan. The compensation amount could climb even higher, the news agency reported, citing its sources.

In April 2023, Bloomberg reported that Kazakhstan had initially filed a $13 billion lawsuit against NCOC, later raising the demand to $15 billion. The allegations centered on multinational companies allegedly...

FlyArystan CEO Richard Ledger came to Uralsk to meet Zhazira Musina, the mother of a 12-year-old girl who wasn’t allowed onboard and left alone in the Astana airport.

«The CEO visited Uralsk to apologize and meet in person Zhazira Musina, the mother of Zere Galiyeva, who was left alone at the Astana airport during the KC 7367 flight boarding on July 21, 2024,» the Telegram post says.

Richard Ledger gifted the certificates for free flights across Kazakhstan operated by FlyArystan until the end of 2024 to Zere Galiyeva, her sister, Zaura, and their mother.

The...

The Civil Aviation Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan has fined FlyArystan, a low-cost subsidiary of the national air carrier AirAstana, approximately $7,700 for violating passengers’ rights on a delayed Almaty-Astana flight.

According to the Committee, the air carrier did not provide the passengers of the delayed flight with the legally required services. Thus, the passengers were provided with neither accommodation nor transfer to the hotel and back to the airport. As a result, an administrative offense report was filed under Part 2, Article 567 of The Civil Code on Administrative Offenses of the Republic of Kazakhstan with a fine...