News

The Central Bank of Russia has cleared the way for Timur Turlov’s company Freedom Holding to sell its two subsidiaries – Freedom Finance (Cifra Broker) and Freedom Finance Bank (Cifra Bank) – to Maxim Povalishin, former deputy director general and member of the board of directors of Freedom Finance Investment Company. The deal is estimated at $140 million, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s website.

Plans for the future

The deal between Turlov and Povalishin was approved by the regulator on February 10. The two sides plan to close the deal by the end of this month...

According to Berik Sholpankulov, deputy head of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, the regulator needs the base rate at the current level because inflation risks are still there. Even though the price increase rate has been cooling down since spring 2022, it is still higher than annual rates on average, he said.

The official noted that the inflation in Kazakhstan continues to grow because of significant changes in global supply chains, high inflation expectations, fiscal incentives to boost demand and lending growth.

He also said that global markets expect the leading central banks to soften their monetary policy by the...

In January 2023, Kazakhstan’s economy grew by 5.6%, according to Timur Zhaksylykov, first vice minister of the national economy. While reporting to the cabinet, he also noted that the service sector grew by

7.6% while the real economy grew by 2.3%.

«Although all key industries have shown growth, the trade industry, information and communication, and the construction sector were among the leaders,» the official said.

Capital investments also grew by 18.3% during the reporting period.

The processing, car and computer industries have risen by 12.2%, 27.5% and 29.6% respectively.

In January 2023, food manufacturing in Kazakhstan rose...

Kazakhstan’s seismology stations have registered today an earthquake with an epicenter in 71 kilometers from Almaty. The energy class of the quake was 8.8 with a magnitude of 4.2 and a depth of 25 kilometers.

Earlier today the authorities also reported a quake in neighboring China (574 kilometers from Almaty). The energy class of this quake was 9.3, magnitude – 4.1 and a depth of five kilometers.

According to the authorities, residents in Almaty were unlikely to even notice these quakes.

Earthquakes aren’t unusual for the region. For example, the country reported three earth shocks on February 11 and two...

The Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) said that the experiment with the online retailing of wine by Russia violates the rights of other member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). According to the RBC news agency, the EEC sent this letter to the Kremlin in December 2022.

The regulator believes that online retailing of only Russian-made wines is going to violate the EEU arrangements which demand member states support the free flow of goods within the common market. Suppliers from all the EEU member states must be provided with equal rights in every country of the organization.

In turn, the...

Urgent overhaul at one of six processing trains at the Tengiz oil field caused a decline in output at the oil field, according to the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan.

«Tengiz has played the key role in oil output decline due to urgent overhaul of one out of six processing trains at the site,» the agency said in an official statement.

It is expected that the production cycle will be fully restored once the overhaul is over. Even though the Ministry of Energy hasn’t provided any details about the timeline of the overhaul, it said that before the decline, Tengiz...

Revolut, a British fintech company established by former Russian citizen Nikolay Storonskiy and Ukrainian citizen Vlad Yatsenko, is planning to enter Kazakhstan’s market.

Currently, any owner of a Kazakhstani mobile phone number can register in Revolut’s mobile app. However, even registered users from Kazakhstan still can’t get access to all features of Revolut and have to wait on a waiting list.

In an official response to Kursiv’s request for comment, the Revolut press service said that the company has been testing its service in Kazakhstan. The company refused to reveal any further details.

Kursiv has officially requested the National Bank...

According to Galymzhan Pirmatov, head of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, his agency is going to proceed with the process of quitting national soft loan programs and won’t take part in such programs in the future.

The official noted that the intention of the National Bank to downplay its role in the national financial programs is part of a broader process of decreasing the role of the government in financing the economy. This is an important pivot for the bank, which wants to focus on its prior tasks. Any further participation of the regulator in soft loan programs is risky...

On April 1, 2023, the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry of Kazakhstan will start issuing licenses for digital miners, according to the cabinet’s decision.

The ministry will issue licenses for owners of data processing centers (DPC) and those miners who just rent digital capacity from DPCs and aren’t eligible for energy quotas.

On February 6, 2023, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a law on digital assets that regulates cryptocurrency mining in Kazakhstan. The main part of the law will enter into force on April 1, 2023. However, digital miners won’t be required to sell part of the cryptocurrency...

Last year was tough for the global cryptocurrency industry. A spate of scandals caused the industry to shrink threefold in terms of participants and plunged to $810 billion as of December 2022. There were some Kazakhstani traces in this cascade of events. Kursiv has taken a look at links that connected the country and Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the collapsed crypto exchange.

The collapse of FTX – the world’s second-biggest cryptocurrency exchange – became a real shock for the entire industry. The FTX crisis was spurred by the default of Alameda, a company closely affiliated with Bankman-Fried. As a result...

According to Olzhas Kizatov, deputy head of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market of the Republic of Kazakhstan (ARDFM), about seven banks might be affected by new restrictions the agency is going to impose on dividend payout policy. All these banks have received financial support from the government.

«As we know, seven banks have public support tools on their balance. Among these tools are subordinated bonds (provided at easy repayment rates) and public money on banking deposits,» Kizatov said.

All seven banks won’t be able to conduct dividend payouts unless the regulator gives...

Focus Brands, an American franchise company, is going to enter Uzbekistan’s market this year with its brand Cinnabon.

The geography of the company’s business expansion also includes Guyana, Singapore, Morocco and Taiwan.

Cinnabon is a bakery restaurant chain well known for its rolls with cinnamon and crème cheese. The brand franchise holders run 1,600 restaurants in 60 countries throughout the globe.

These restaurants are often located in crowded trading centers, airports and railroad stations.

According to Zhandos Shaimardanov, head of the Bureau of National Statistics, Kazakhstan will track inflation with the help of fiscal receipts.

«We are going to replace the current method of price registration with fiscal data. We will switch to the new method once the Single Catalogue of Goods and Services is implemented and the new way of validation is approved by the IMF. Meanwhile, we continue to use the traditional method of data collection, although in parallel we are testing the inflation calculation based fiscal receipts,» he said.

The official noted that some European countries like Belgium...

Astana International Financial Center is going to host a new international trading platform called ITS. Once the registration process is completed, the platform will start working as a bridge between local investors and stocks of big global companies. ITS is going to provide investors with an opportunity to trade for 16 hours a day and guarantee that trades will be executed at the best international prices.

It is expected that ITS will operate along with KASE and AIX as an additional trading platform, not a new stock exchange. ITS is a multilateral trading facility (MTF) that doesn’t support initial public...

The ruling political party Amanat has nominated its candidates to Mazhilis and Maslikhats, including the chairman of the party and Ex-Speaker of Mazhilis Erlan Koshanov, Former Education Minister Askhat Aimagambetov and more than one hundred other nominees.

The list of 119 candidates has been approved at the urgent 26th summit of the party in Astana.

Among the most famous candidates are Kunsulu Zakarya, head of the National Holding QazBioPharm and one of the developers of the anti-COVID-19 vaccine QazVac; Emin Askerov, head of the social workshop Green Tal; Nikita Shatalov, political observer; Marat Bashimov, editor-in-chief of the Man and Law...

When Elena Rybakina reached the final of the Australia Open 2023, her position in the global ranking of tennis players raised dramatically. The leader of the national tennis team in Kazakhstan, she has broken into the top ten of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). This is what a 23-year-old female tennis player’s success story looks like.

Elena Rybakina was born on June 17, 1999, in Moscow. She began playing tennis when she was a child and has never stopped since. Rybakina attended many sporting schools including Dinamo and Spartak. She even tested herself in gymnastics and figure skating but was...

The government of Kazakhstan is going to increase its export customs duty (ECD) for light and dark oil products threefold from a coefficient of 0.3 to 1, according to Vice Minister of Energy Aset Magauov.

«We are going to make the ECD for oil products and the crude oil the same with the coefficient 1. I mean that the old coefficient of 0.3 for light oil products will be increased to 1. About three years ago, this scheme had already been in place,» the official told Kursiv.

According to Magauov, three years ago the government planned to export oil products...

In 2022, mobile operator Beeline was forced to dismantle 340 cell sites because of radiophobia, according to the company’s press service.

In October 2022, there were 50 spots in Almaty and 20 spots in Astana where the quality of mobile connections decreased due to radiophobia. Residents demanded the company either to not install or to dismantle telecommunication equipment in the areas where they live.

In 2021, Beeline failed to install about 40% of its planned cell sites. The company noted that the problem is not the equipment – there is plenty of it in stock.

The government of Kazakhstan also...

The construction of light rail transit (LRT) in Astana must be completed, according to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Given that the government has already spent a huge amount of money on the project and the capital city desperately needs a better transportation system, there is no other choice.

The president made this statement during a meeting with Astana officials.

«Previously, I already said that the LRT project was mostly faulty, but now we have no choice but to complete the project. We will book much more losses if we stop right now. There are no alternatives for us,» Tokayev...

In January, the inflation rate in Kazakhstan increased to 20.7% on a year-on-year basis. In December 2022, inflation grew by 20.3%. Last year, food prices grew by 25.7%, non-food product prices surged by 20.2%, and the price for paid services rose by 14.3%, according to the Bureau of National Statistics.

In January 2023, the monthly inflation was at 1.1%. Food product prices grew by 1.4%, non-food product prices by 0.9%, and paid services increased by 0.7%.

In terms of specific products, the January price surge was 22.4% for cucumbers, 16.7% for onions, and 8.8% for tomatoes. Among non-food products, the...

In 2022, Kazakhstan authorities reported a 59% growth in tax revenues ($46 billion in total). According to the Association of Financiers of Kazakhstan (AFK), this growth was driven by high oil prices, economic growth and the weakening of the national currency. The AFK said that thanks to additional tax revenues, the government cut the deficit of the country’s consolidated budget to $2.8 billion (by 2.7 times).

Allocations to the National Fund, which is responsible for the accumulation of taxes from oil companies and tax for public property controlled by private entities, accounted for the biggest growth (48%). Corporate income...

Heads of the Internal Affairs Ministry and Ministry of Industry have ignored their scheduled meetings with the public, according to Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov.

In contrast, ministers of digital development, labor, energy and emergencies successfully held a set of such meetings. All of them were well organized and announced beforehand.

“Heads of several ministries failed to hold 15 scheduled meetings with the population. For instance, the Ministry of Industry failed to hold meetings in two regions. The Ministry of Energy and Internal Affairs did the same. No explanations will be accepted. Officials are obliged to hold these meetings...

As of December 2022, Kazakhstan’s international reserves increased by 1% to $90.8 billion, including $35 billion of gross international reserves and $55.7 billion of National Fund assets, according to the country’s National Bank.

At the same time, the regulator noted that the country’s gold and foreign currency reserves have dropped by 4.8% to $20.5 billion, while assets in freely convertible currency increased by 16.7% to $14.6 billion.

Gold and foreign currency reserves are meant to be used to support the tenge exchange rate or to finance the deficit of the balance of payments. The National Bank forms these reserves at...

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan is negotiating with its Japanese counterpart about the possible restart of regular direct flights between Astana and Tokyo, according to Aibek Smadiyarov, the ministry’s official spokesperson.

«We are interested in restarting these popular flights. I can’t provide any detail. The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns have changed plans for many countries, so we need to negotiate either from scratch or from where our previous negotiations stopped,» he said during a media briefing.

The official noted that the ministry and its embassies are also negotiating about opening air travel to various old...