News

This year Kazakhstan is going to conscript 190 reserve officers for two-year service in the army, the Interfax news agency reported.

On February 24 the office of the prime minister published this order on the official website. The document must enter into force ten days after the initial publication.

«To conscript reserve officers, who are fit for service but haven’t done it, into the two-year service in the army as officers,» the rule said.

As the document says, this year the government wants 190 reserve officers, including 150 reserve officers of the army and 40 reserve officers of the border...

Traders are preparing for the situation on markets to worsened amid a huge flow of news from Eastern Europe. The Russian army continues to advance on the capital city of Kyiv while the U.S. and its allies are going to strengthen economic sanctions against the Kremlin.

The West vs Russia

The U.S., the U.K., Canada and the EU have agreed to cut several Russian banks from SWIFT, an international payment system for banks. They’ve also agreed to stop any transactions with the Bank of Russia and froze its gold and currency reserves of $620 billion. Any assets which...

According to the official website Akorda.kz, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed an edict replacing the former interior minister Erlan Turgumbayev with Marat Akhmetzhanov, who used to serve as the head of the Anti-Corruption Agency.

«In accordance with the decision of the president Erlan Turgumbayev has been appointed the counselor to the president of the Republic of Kazakhstan,» the official statement said.

Akhmetzhanov had worked as the head of the Anti-corruption agency since Spring 2021. Over the period from 2016 to 2021 he was the prosecutor general of the country.

Lieutenant General of the police Erlan Turgumbayev was born on August...

Dariga Nazarbayeva has announced her resignation from the position of the deputy of Mazhilis and thanked her voters, Zakon.kz reported.

«The January events have shown that there is no way for Kazakhstan to pursue thriving and further development without peace and unity in the country. Those events are a real tragedy for all our people,» she said.

According to Nazarbayeva, a rigorous and fair investigation into the events is needed. Those who are guilty must be punished while innocent people must be released.

«We all, the entire society have to learn our lesson from the dark January events and take...

Asian Development Bank (ADB) is going to provide Tajikistan with financial support to help the country improve its finance and energy sectors. The Kursiv edition has prepared a survey of significant economic and financial events in the Central Asian region. Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have been named as countries with oppressive economies. The exchange rate of the U.S. dollar has surged in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan due to the Russian military operation against Ukraine. At the same time, Uzbekistan has lifted restrictions on the export of cement, clinker and glass.

International assistance

Asian Development Bank is going to grant Tajikistan...

Starting today, Air Astana has cancelled all flights to Kyiv at least until March 7, 2022, as Ukraine imposes a no-fly zone on the country, the company’s press service said.

The airline will allow its clients to re-book or return tickets people bought over the period from February 7 to March 7 free of charge until the end of March. 

All passengers were informed about the flight cancelation through SMS notification.

This cancellation followed the flight ban to Ukraine, which Kazakhstan’s Aviation Regulator has imposed for all Kazakhstan airlines due to the extremely high level of danger in the sky...

Kazakhstan’s peacekeepers might be sent to Ukraine if the United Nations decides to do so, according to Maulen Ashimbayev, chairman of the Senate, the upper chamber of Kazakhstan’s parliament.

As the official noted, diplomacy is still relevant for de-escalating the situation in Eastern Ukraine.

Along with Russia and Belarus, Kazakhstan is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization; however, the country isn’t going to participate in the Russian operation in Ukraine.

«Kazakhstan is ready to send its troops anywhere in the globe if the UN decides to do so,» he said.

As the trading sessions on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) have shown today, the shares of prominent Kazakhstan companies such as Kaspi, Halyk Bank and Kazatomprom are in a free fall.

GDR of Kaspi (equivalents to common shares) dropped by 19.62% on the LSE to $63.1 per GDP. At the same time, the value of the company’s shares declined by 13.35% to $70.

Earlier, Kaspi shares dropped by 74.5% to $20. According to the company, this decline is a sign of the swift reaction of Western partners to the current geopolitical risks. As Kaspi noted...

The National Bank of Kazakhstan has decided to increase the base rate from 10.25% to 13.5% with the percentage corridor +/– 1 p.p. The rate of the standing facility for liquidity provision is going to be at 14.5% and 12.5% for the standing facility for liquidity withdrawal.

According to the National Bank, this decision became necessary to support staple prices while geopolitical risks have been unfolding in Ukraine. As the bank press services noted, this was not a surprise because the government of Kazakhstan and the National Bank had awaited this worst-case scenario and are prepared to roll out anti-crisis...

Kazakhstan’s embassy to Kyiv has started the evacuation of citizens of Kazakhstan due to the latest events in Ukraine, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.

Citizens of Kazakhstan who currently stay in Ukraine can contact the Embassy at 26 Ilyenko Street, Kyiv or call by phone: +38 (067) 347 04 08 (WhatsApp, Viber), +38 (044) 483 15 96, and +38 (044) 489 18 58.

«Our fellow citizens can also contact offices of Kazakhstan’s Honorary Consulates in Kharkiv (it covers the Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava regions), Lviv (the Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Chernovitski and Lviv regions), and Odessa...

Nexign, a major international provider of BSS solutions, has announced the completion of Phase One and the commencement of Phase Two in the project on installing Nexign Converged BSS at Kcell, one of the largest mobile operators in Kazakhstan servicing 8 million subscribers, which accounts for a half of the country’s population.

Currently, the initial configuring of the system has been finalized and it is operating in pilot mode with a limited number of customers. Phase Two will include the adjustment and field-testing of the billing platform as well as on-demand migration, and will conclude with the system’s commercial commissioning...

Air Astana, a national air carrier in Kazakhstan, is keeping an eye on the situation around Ukraine and will immediately stop its direct flights between the countries if the situation worsens, said Tlek Abdrakhmanov, corporate communications manager in the company.

«To make sure that both Kazakhstan and Ukraine citizens are able to travel back home, Air Astana is going to continue to conduct flights between the two countries by an alternative route with a technical stop in Atyrau (the West Kazakhstan region),» said Abdrakhmanov.

The departure time from Almaty and Nur-Sultan hasn’t been changed while the arrival time in Kyiv...

The size of recycling fees for vehicles in Kazakhstan has been reduced by 50%, according to the Khabar24 TV channel citing Roman Sklyar, the first vice minister of the country.

«The decision has been made. The current level of financial stimulation of the automobile industry allows us to cut the recycling fee twofold for all types of vehicles and agricultural machinery,» the official said.

The government plans to make allowances to the system when needed. In other words, the fee may be reduced even more or increased if necessary.

According to Sklyar, the recycling fee is an effective incentive for...

Cerebra is entering Uzbekistan’s market, after receiving funding from Timur Turlov, CEO of Freedom Holding Corp. in June 2021. The company is going to launch its pilot project at the base of two Uzbek clinics, according to the press service of Astana Hub.

Cerebra is an IT company from Almaty that has been working in the area of artificial intelligence since 2018. The company’s software helps neurobiologists to disclose cerebral thrombosis within a ten-minute test. The program is now available in 18 consultant centers across Kazakhstan.

According to Doszhan Zhussupov, head of the project, the company has got several offers...

According to the press service of QazaqGaz, the company has changed its board of directors.

«In accordance with the decision of Samruk-Kazyna, a corporate parent to QazaqGaz, the company has changed members of the board. Three of the board’s members were dismissed from office: Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, Kairat Sharipbayev and Malik Saulebay,» the press service reported.

Now Ernat Berdigulov and Nikolay Kazutin will be guards of the interests of Samruk-Kazyna.

Moreover, Ernat Berdigulov has been elected as the new chairman of the board of directors of QazaqGaz. 

After all these staff changes, the company’s board now includes four members: Ernat Berdigulov...

DiDi, a Chinese company that runs taxi-hailing services in Russia and Kazakhstan, has declared it is going to stop working in both countries.

«Our mission here in DiDi is to make daily life more comfortable through the best possible services for our passengers and partners. Unfortunately, we are no longer able to continue this practice in Kazakhstan, which is the reason DiDi is going to stop working here on March 4, 2022,» the company said on social media.

The company has expressed its gratitude toward drivers and passengers who have been supporters of the service since the very beginning of...

The Ministry of Health of Kazakhstan has approved Sputnik M, the new Russian vaccine for teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17, the TASS news agency reported. The country has become the first state excluding Russia that approved the vaccine.

On November 24, 2021, the Russian ministry of health registered the new two-component Sputnik M vaccine for teenagers. The developer of the vaccine is the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. In fact, this is a reduced dose (1/5) of Sputnik V for adults.

The vaccine has been registered after a series of clinical trials that have proven the high profile...

According to Dauren Kozybakov, deputy head of the department of the Committee of Administrative Police Kazakhstan’s citizens have given back 109 items of small arms that were stolen during the January events in Almaty and several other regions all over the country.

These arms include 11 rifled weapons, 53 items of smoothbore weapons and other types of guns.

As the law enforcement official noted, all people who had given these arms voluntarily won’t face any charges of illegal possession of arms and explosives, of course, if they haven’t used these guns to commit a crime.

According to the Office of...

As the official spokesperson of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Berik Uali wrote on Facebook that the president has been informationally attacked. The president doesn’t possess any bank accounts in Switzerland.

Moreover, the spokesperson said that the president has no accounts in a foreign bank or offshore company nor possesses any foreign property.

This is nothing more than a fake, this is an information attack against the country’s leader aimed at undermining the public trust toward the president because he actively works on putting limits to the monopoly in the national economy and political sphere. Some people hate that he is...

The former defense minister of Kazakhstan Marat Bektanov was detained in Nur-Sultan. He has since been taken into custody.

According to the Ministry of Defense, the official is accused of non-feasance during the January unrest.

The criminal investigation into mass disorder and terrorism in the territory of Kazakhstan has established that the former defense minister Bektanov has failed to take actions he was supposed to take.

OFFICE OF THE PROSECUTOR GENERAL

On February 19, the Office of the Prosecutor General initiated the pre-trial investigation under Article 452 of the country’s Criminal Code (inaction of authorities). This article of the Criminal...

Hungarian law enforcement officials have detained a citizen of Romania who is accused of stealing money from unspecified commercial banks in Kazakhstan.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, the hacker was put on an international wanted list by the police department from Almaty. Along with other criminal figures from different countries the hacker had been cracking accounts of a variety of banks in Kazakhstan, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Taiwan. He transferred stolen money to banking cards and then withdrew that money through ATMs.

The total amount of damage is more than $9 million. Currently, Hungarian authorities...

On February 18, while giving a speech to the congress of the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs Atameken Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov said that the cabinet he’s headed is ready to reboot its way of work.

The national chamber of entrepreneurs must be focused on solving the most urgent issues that affect business. As a government, we are ready to go through the transformation along with entrepreneurs to improve the business environment here in Kazakhstan. The task of developing entrepreneurship is the basis of the new economic policy that the government is going to pursue in 2022.

PRIME MINISTER OF KAZAKHSTAN...

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is going to reveal preliminary results of the investigation into the January events during his national address in March, the president’s official spokesperson Berik Uali wrote on Facebook.

The spokesman noted that so far the investigation is still ongoing as investigators need some time to make sure this task is done.

As President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said in the interview with the Qazaqstan TV channel, all the information will be revealed. We are not going to hide anything from the people of Kazakhstan.

BERIK UALI, SPOKESMAN FOR PRESIDENT TOKAYEV

The official added that the authorities have already...

Three universities have been closed by the decision of a court, according to the press service of the Ministry of Education and Science.

These three universities are Central Asian University, the University of Humanities and Technology in Aktau and Astana University.

These entities used to hold low positions in the education rating by the National Entrepreneurs Chamber Atameken for several years in a row. Many of the educational programs by these universities didn’t meet the requirements of the modern labor market and were unpopular among students. Moreover, all three entities failed to improve their work and never tried to attract...