News

Ingka Group, the owner of IKEA shops and MEGA trading centers in Russia, is going to sell more than two million square meters of real estate. Currently, the company is looking for buyers. Once the property is sold, Ingka Group will leave Russia completely, according to RBC citing sources familiar with the matter.

These sources insist that Ingka Group wants to sell everything it owns in Russia. The group already negotiated with two potential buyers but has not made a final decision yet.

Nevertheless, the press service of Ingka Centers, a subsidiary of Ingka Group, refused to comment on «rumors...

Freedom Holding Corp. is going to acquire Maxim Group LLC, an American financial organization, and its subsidiary Maxim Financial Advisors LLC for about $400 million in cash and common shares, according to Freedom Holding’s press service.

The holding representatives said that the deal will intensify the company’s international expansion started in December 2020, when Prime Executions was acquired. Once the deal is completed, Robert Wotzyak will lead Maxim Group as its executive chairman, while Clifford Teller will serve as CEO and Chris Fiore as president of the company.

«We are eager to expand our business globally...

The General Prosecutor’s Office of Kazakhstan is going to take back control over the Jusan Group to protect the interests of thousands of students of Nazarbayev University and Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools. Despite this statement the agency published on Telegram, Jusan Bank rushed to say that any initiatives, comments or rumors about the asset recovery have nothing to do with the bank itself.

The General Prosecutor’s Office insists that the transfer of property of Pioneer Capital Invest (the company that owns Jusan Group) was opaque. The agency came to this conclusion after a review of the country’s banking sector to see...

Kazakhstan and Russia continue to proceed with the process of demarcation of a 300-kilometer-long section of the border between the two states, according to Erlan Aldamzhumanov, head of the Border Service/deputy head of the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan.

The official noted that Kazakhstan has no border issues with other countries. The country managed to delimitate all its borders, although it has to complete the process of demarcation at the border with Russia.

Given that the border between the East Kazakhstan region and Russia stretches through mountains, the demarcation here isn’t an easy process.

“We have...

In 2023, Kazakhstan will produce 160,000 more barrels of oil and gas condensate per day than it did last year, according to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Expansion projects by Kashagan, Tengiz and Karachaganak are expected to be behind this increase in Kazakhstan’s output. In December 2022, the country already increased its production by 7,000 barrels to 1.6 million barrels a day thanks to Kashagan and Karachaganak.

OPEC believes that non-member countries will decrease their oil and gas condensate production by 150,000 barrels a day to 67.01 million barrels a day this year. However, countries such as...

Kazakhstan authorities have accused a Russian citizen of illegal business activity while staying in the country. Over three years he earned more than $397,500, a sum that is considered a large-scale financial crime, according to the Agency for Regulation and Development of Financial Market (ARDFM). 

«The Kostanay Department of the ARDFM has stopped the illegal activity of cryptocurrency exchange shops KZobmen.com and KZobmen Ltd.,» the agency said in a statement.

The local court has arrested the property of the accused man worth $187,739, including his digital assets at the Binanсе crypto exchange.

The agency said that it managed to identify...

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’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...

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...

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...