ASTANA (TCA) — During the 30th plenary meeting of the Foreign Investors’ Council in Astana on June 22, chaired by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakh Minister for Investment and Development Zhenis Kassymbek reported on the implementation of the instructions for the establishment of the Astana International Financial Center, the official website of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan reported.
Execution of protocol instructions of the 29th meeting of the Council will allow the full-scale launch of the work of the AIFC from January 2018. To date, the formation of the legal platform for the activities of the AIFC is completed. So, in March of this year, an amendment to the Constitution of Kazakhstan was adopted, which set up the basis for the special legal regime of the AIFC.
Together with international experts in financial services and English law, the development of normative documents of the Independent Court and the International Arbitration Center is being finalized for the AIFC.
Minister Kassymbek spoke about the structure of the newly created AIFC Committee for the Regulation of Financial Services, whose Board of Directors includes the world’s leading experts who worked as directors of regulatory agencies and international financial institutions in the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and the Dubai Financial Center.
In addition, the work on the establishment of the AIFC Stock Exchange is being completed. Strategic partners among global exchange leaders were defined. Thus, the Shanghai Stock Exchange will become a shareholder of the new stock exchange of the AIFC (with a 25% stake), which opens access to China’s investment liquidity. The agreement on the implementation of the most high-tech trading platform was signed with the American NASDAQ exchange. The NASDAQ is also considering entering the capital of the exchange.
In the fourth quarter of this year, the AIFC Stock Exchange will be ready to conduct the first trading.
AIFC will become a regional hub for Islamic and “green” finance. Work on the environmental direction is conducted jointly with the EBRD. The debut issue of “sukuk” sovereign state Islamic securities with a volume of up to $300 million in 2018 is under consideration.
