Business & Economy - The Times Of Central Asia

Viewing results 19 - 24 of 2624

Astana Finance Days 2026

Astana Finance Days 2026 to Draw Global Investors to Kazakhstan

Astana will host the ninth Astana Finance Days on September 9–10. This year, organizers expect more than 5,500 participants from over 80 countries, and the geography of the guests reflects the markets Kazakhstan has increasingly looked to for capital: the United States and Europe, China and Hong Kong, the Gulf states, and its Central Asian neighbors. The announced speakers include representatives of BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Brookfield, FTSE Russell, Bloomberg, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and China International Capital Corporation. Representatives of Binance, Mastercard, and Telegram/TON are also expected. Kazakhstan will be represented by National Bank Governor Timur Suleimenov, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development Zhaslan Madiyev, Freedom Holding Corp. CEO Timur Turlov, and others. This year’s agenda reflects the region’s continuing search for new sources of financing: capital markets, investment products, financing for the real economy, regulation, financial technology, and cross-border investment. The forum will be held under the theme “Delivering Impact. Capital in Action.” Astana Finance Days was launched in 2018 alongside the establishment of the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC). The first forum was closely linked to the creation of Kazakhstan’s new financial hub, but the range of participants has expanded considerably over the past eight years. Last year, AFD attracted more than 5,500 participants from 82 countries. They included representatives of investment firms managing approximately $1.5 trillion in combined assets. Over two days, the forum hosted 40 events featuring 160 speakers, while the Astana International Exchange announced four listings and seven agreements were signed. China and Hong Kong stand out in the 2026 guest list. Representatives of the Hong Kong Investment Corporation, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Stock Exchange, and CICC are expected in Astana. BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and Brookfield are also represented. Kazakhstan has increasingly sought investment from the West, China, and the Middle East, so the range of institutions represented may be more significant than the overall attendance figure. There is another reason AFD goes beyond a conventional financial conference. The AIFC was established as a separate jurisdiction with its own court, regulator, and legal framework based on the principles of English common law. Kazakhstan designed it to make it easier for foreign businesses to enter the local market and raise capital. Thousands of companies from dozens of countries are now registered with the AIFC, and Astana Finance Days has effectively become an annual meeting point between businesses operating within this system and potential investors and new partners. Investment will not be the only subject under discussion in September. The program includes digital asset regulation, new financial technologies, capital markets, and corporate financing. A separate AFD Exhibition will bring together banks, asset managers, investment firms, and fintech projects. The Times of Central Asia is a media partner of Astana Finance Days 2026. Special coverage coming soon.

Energy

Kazakhstan Mini-Refineries Eye Russia After Rail Export Restriction Lifted

Kazakhstan has lifted a railway export restriction on petroleum products from mini-refineries. For small plants, many of which operate well below capacity, the decision restores an opportunity to sell their products outside the country. Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ), the national railway company, revoked the restriction following an August 7 decision by the country’s Chief Transport Prosecutor’s Office. The timing is notable: after a series of strikes on its refineries, Russia is facing fuel shortages and has already begun importing gasoline from abroad, including Kazakhstan. Other restrictions on fuel exports from Kazakhstan remain in force, so the KTZ decision does not fully reopen gasoline and diesel exports. Some fuels remain subject to separate bans, and exports to Russia are treated differently from shipments outside the Eurasian Economic Union. What Mini-Refineries Produce The number of mini-refineries actually operating in Kazakhstan depends on how such facilities are defined. Official documents have referred to roughly 30 small petroleum-product producers. More recent industry data provide a clearer picture: more than 30 mini-refineries are registered, with declared crude-processing capacity of about 4.5 million metric tons a year. Of these, 22 are considered operational, with a combined capacity of about 2 million tons. Actual processing is considerably lower, having increased from roughly 400,000 to 800,000 tons annually over the past five years. These are not smaller versions of Kazakhstan’s major refineries in Atyrau, Pavlodar, and Shymkent. Most mini-refineries lack equipment for deep refining, so their output is simpler. Their main products include fuel oil, heating and marine fuels, naphtha, and other distillates. In 2023, mini-refineries processed 895,000 tons of feedstock and produced 346,000 tons of fuel oil, 145,000 tons of diesel fuel, and 171,000 tons of bitumen. Much of this output was not intended for Kazakhstan’s motorists. Mini-refineries produce semi-finished products, including straight-run fuel oil with a relatively high share of light fractions that can be processed further. Their opportunities on the domestic market are also limited by product quality: Kazakhstan has required K4 and K5 motor-fuel standards since 2018, while official assessments say mini-refineries generally lack the equipment to produce fuel above the K3 standard. Restoring export opportunities could therefore have a tangible economic effect for these businesses. The plants have spare capacity but insufficient domestic demand for much of their current product range. Rail exports once again give them a way to look for buyers outside Kazakhstan. And that inevitably raises the question of Russia. Russia Is Looking Abroad for Fuel There is no direct evidence that KTZ lifted the restriction specifically because of the Russian market. Neither the Kazakh authorities nor the railway company has made such a connection. But the decision comes at a convenient time for potential Russian buyers. Ukrainian drone strikes and unplanned refinery outages have reduced Russian gasoline production and contributed to domestic shortages. Moscow has responded by restricting fuel exports and increasing imports from abroad. Russia has already turned to several suppliers. In July, Belarus shipped a record 212,000 tons of gasoline to Russia, while Moscow has also begun...

Opinion

Turkmenistan and the New Geopolitics of Silicon

Central Asia is not foreign to the emerging geopolitics of silicon and artificial intelligence (AI). Kazakhstan especially has made itself noticed, joining the US-led Pax Silica initiative in June and the Chinese-led World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) in July. Kazakhstan is the only country participating in both initiatives, which is characteristic of Astana’s multi-vector diplomacy. Whilst other Central Asian states have joined WAICO, Turkmenistan, consistent with its permanent neutrality stance, has joined neither. Neutrality, however, does not prevent economic participation, and a case has to be made for Turkmenistan. Two Frameworks for International Cooperation Although both initiatives respond to the same underlying reality - the growing strategic importance of artificial intelligence - they differ in scope and emphasis. Pax Silica is built around the material and economic foundations of AI, focusing on securing and coordinating the physical supply chains that make computation possible and aiming implicitly to reduce reliance on China. WAICO, by contrast, is centered on the political and normative dimension of AI, prioritizing governance, safety standards, and international coordination, where Beijing could push its rhetoric in favour of open-source artificial intelligence as a model for AI development. Taken together, they reflect two complementary but distinct ways of structuring the emerging AI order: one rooted in industrial capacity and supply-chain control, the other in multilateral rules. On that matter, Turkmenistan's possible relevance does not lie in software, semiconductor fabrication or AI regulation, but much further upstream: silicon metallurgy. From Gas to Silicon Silicon is abundant in nature, but transforming it into industrial materials is an energy-intensive process. Quartz or quartzite is used to produce both silicon ferroalloys and silicon metal. Ferrosilicon is principally consumed by the iron and steel industries, where it serves as a deoxidizing and alloying agent. Silicon metal, meanwhile, is used in aluminum alloys and chemical production, while a small share is further purified into the extremely high-purity silicon required by the semiconductor industry. Ferrosilicon should not be presented as a material that goes directly into AI chips. But establishing competitive ferrosilicon production can constitute a first industrial step into the broader family of silicon metallurgy. And Turkmenistan has already begun considering precisely that. In 2020, the Turkmen authorities reported that the Ministry of Industry was studying the production of metallurgical-grade silicon using local resources. Practical tests had already been conducted using quartz sand, metal mixtures and petroleum coke, while the government presented the development of domestic mineral resources as part of a broader strategy of industrialization and export diversification. The ambition became more concrete in January 2024. Turkmenistan's Ministry of Industry and Construction Production launched an international tender for a feasibility study for a ferroalloy plant intended to manufacture ferrosilicon, silicon carbide, and technical silicon. A 2024 feasibility study for such a project envisions a plant in Balkan Velayat capable of producing 15,000 tons of FeSi75 ferrosilicon annually. The proposed complex would operate two 12,500 kVA furnaces. Rather than depending exclusively on domestic raw materials, the study envisages sourcing quartzite from nearby Iran and...

Sports Reform

Kazakhstan Saves More Than $17 Million Under New Sports Club Funding Rules

On June 16, 2025, Kazakhstan stopped using state and quasi-state funds to finance foreign athletes at professional sports clubs. Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports now says that measure, combined with wider limits on club budgets, has saved more than 8 billion tenge, or about $17.2 million. The change follows years in which football and hockey clubs spent significant amounts of public money on foreign players. Clubs in Kazakhstan may still sign foreign players, provided their contracts are financed by sponsors or private investors rather than public money. Public spending on foreign players was already under scrutiny before the reform. In January 2025, Ulan Sarkulov, then first deputy chairman of Kazakhstan’s Anti-Corruption Agency, said FC Astana and HC Barys had received nearly 100 billion tenge in total over six years. Foreign players’ salaries accounted for around 60–70% of FC Astana’s budget. The funding restrictions are part of Kazakhstan’s effort to reduce professional football’s reliance on the state. Several clubs have since come under private control. FC Kaisar was placed under the private management of construction entrepreneur Islamgali Kozbakov, while Kaspi.kz co-founder Mikheil Lomtadze became the owner of FC Zhenis. A company in the Freedom Holding Corp. group, founded by Timur Turlov, bought FC Shakhter Karaganda at auction. In January 2026, FC Aktobe was sold for 364 million tenge, about $710,000 at the time, to Qazaq Stroy Properties, owned by businessman Nurlan Artikbayev. As The Times of Central Asia previously reported, the change in ownership was followed by the signing of former Manchester United player Nani. Under FC Aktobe’s privatization plan, some public funding was retained. Before the sale, a regional sports official said public money would support its academy and women’s team. The futsal side was also included, while total state support for the club was expected to fall from 3.5 billion tenge in 2025 to 1.9 billion tenge in 2026. A separate ministerial order effective July 25, 2025, imposed limits on public funding for professional teams. The ceilings are set in units of Kazakhstan’s monthly calculation index (MCI), which is adjusted annually. At 2026 levels, a football club can receive up to about $6.1 million a year in total. The ceiling is around $3.5 million for an ice hockey club. In other team sports, each men’s or women’s program can receive about $1.1 million. Football clubs competing in UEFA tournaments can receive an additional $1.9 million. Monthly salaries paid from public funds to first-team players and coaches are capped at about $4,700. Kazakhstan is also changing how senior jobs in state sports organizations are filled. Since September 2025, the heads of these organizations have been subject to a unified rotation procedure, while appointments to top posts have been made through open competition. Of 112 appointments since then, 86, or 76%, followed an open competitive process. Another part of the reform is the unified e-Sport platform, which will gather records of athletes and competitions from across Kazakhstan’s sports system, along with information on coaches and referees. The ministry plans to...

Power Grid

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan Give Conflicting Accounts of Four-Country Blackout

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have given differing accounts of what triggered the August 14 blackout that cut electricity across swathes of Central Asia. Three days later, the initiating event remains unresolved, and the times released by the two sides do not fit neatly into the same sequence. Kazakhstan’s national grid operator KEGOC says two hydrogenerators at Kyrgyzstan’s Toktogul Hydropower Plant, with a combined capacity of 600 MW, disconnected at 2:37 p.m. Kazakhstan time. KEGOC said the sudden loss of generation overloaded the North-East-South transit corridor, separating southern Kazakhstan from the rest of the national grid and the interconnected systems of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. A special commission is investigating the causes. Meanwhile, Kyrgyzstan’s National Electric Grid has given a different chronology. It said that at 3:34 p.m. Kyrgyzstan time, an external disconnection occurred on a high-voltage line linking the northern and southern parts of Kazakhstan’s power system. The Central Asian network then split into an isolated section, and Kyrgyzstan temporarily operated separately while automatic protection systems worked to protect equipment. The one-hour difference between the countries’ clocks makes the discrepancy clearer. Kazakhstan has used UTC+5 nationwide since 2024, while Kyrgyzstan uses UTC+6. That puts Kyrgyzstan’s reported line disconnection at 2:34 p.m. Kazakhstan time, three minutes before KEGOC’s stated 2:37 p.m. Toktogul shutdown. The two times may describe different stages of a fast-moving cascade, but they do not establish the same starting point. A third timestamp complicates the sequence. Alatau Zharyq Company said three 500 kV KEGOC transmission lines shut down at 2:38 p.m., and that those lines triggered automatic load-shedding and frequency protection in Almaty and the surrounding region. Taken together, the public statements leave a sequence of 2:34 p.m., 2:37 p.m., and 2:38 p.m. that investigators will need to reconcile. TCA reporters in Almaty and Bishkek experienced power cuts, while local media reported outages in Dushanbe, Khujand, and southern parts of Uzbekistan. In Kazakhstan, the disturbance affected consumers in the Zhambyl, Turkistan, Kyzylorda, Zhetysu, and Almaty regions, with further restrictions in Karaganda, Ulytau, and Abai. KEGOC said supplies were restored across the affected regions later that afternoon. The four-country impact reflects how tightly the systems are connected. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan operate in parallel through the Central Asian power system. Cross-border links allow operators to share electricity and reserve capacity, but also mean that a sudden loss of generation or a major transmission line can be felt beyond one national grid before protection systems isolate the disturbance. Central Asia has been here before. In January 2022, a major blackout hit southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. The event also involved a sharp imbalance on the regional network and the separation of Kazakhstan’s northern and southern grids. Its precise starting point was disputed in the immediate aftermath. The regional grid dates to the Soviet period. Uzbekistan later withdrew from the old electricity ring, leaving Tajikistan largely isolated for years. Regional links have since been rebuilt; Tajikistan began reconnecting to the unified system in 2024. An Asian Development Bank project is adding...

Agricultural Export

Kazakhstan Agricultural Exports Face Growing Competition from Uzbekistan

Kazakhstan is rapidly increasing the value of its agricultural exports and trying to sell more processed products abroad rather than simply exporting raw commodities. In 2025, the country’s agricultural exports reached $7 billion, with processed products accounting for $3.6 billion. In the first four months of 2026, exports of agricultural and food products rose another 36% to $3 billion. But Kazakhstan’s relationship with Uzbekistan, one of the main buyers of its agricultural products, shows another side of this process. Uzbekistan is also beginning to challenge the established pattern. It buys Kazakh grain, vegetable oils, and oilseed products, but is expanding its own processing capacity. In some sectors, finished Uzbek products are now entering the same foreign markets where Kazakh producers have traditionally been strong. This is most clearly visible in the flour market. Kazakhstan has long been a dominant regional flour exporter and was until recently Afghanistan’s main supplier. Uzbekistan, meanwhile, imported both Kazakh wheat and flour. As Tashkent expanded its domestic milling capacity, it increasingly bought raw Kazakh wheat and turned it into flour at home. By 2025, the balance had shifted. Kazakhstan supplied Afghanistan with about 1.05 million metric tons of flour, while Uzbekistan shipped nearly 1.59 million tons. Almost all of Uzbekistan’s flour exports in 2025 went to the Afghan market. Kazakhstan has not disappeared from this production chain. Uzbekistan remains one of the largest buyers of Kazakh wheat. Those grain shipments help supply Uzbek flour mills, with the finished flour then exported, including to Afghanistan. Uzbekistan also continues to import Kazakh flour, so the substitution has not been complete. Kazakhstan is also developing its agricultural processing. Exports of processed agricultural products rose 35% to $3.6 billion in 2025. In the flour market, however, the value-adding step of milling grain and exporting the flour has increasingly shifted to its neighbor. There are signs of a similar shift in the vegetable oil and fat industry, although Kazakhstan’s position here remains considerably stronger. Between September 2025 and May 2026, Kazakhstan supplied Uzbekistan with 553,000 metric tons of vegetable oils and meal and oilcake, 31% more than during the same period of the previous season. Kazakhstan accounted for more than 90% of Uzbekistan’s vegetable oil imports in 2025. For Kazakhstan, this is an example of moving beyond the simple export of agricultural raw materials. Uzbekistan, meanwhile, is expanding its own oils and fats industry. Large enterprises produced 31,200 metric tons of margarine and spreads in 2025, up 21.4% from a year earlier. Sunflower oil production is also growing. In January-August 2025, large Uzbek enterprises produced 83,500 metric tons, compared with 28,000 metric tons during the same period in 2023. Domestic production is therefore rising rapidly even as Uzbekistan continues to import large volumes of sunflower oil. Uzbekistan is also beginning to export more sunflower oil. In the first half of 2025, Uzbekistan supplied Afghanistan with more than 17,700 metric tons of sunflower oil, becoming its largest supplier during that period, according to data from agricultural market analyst Marina Sidak and as reported by APK-Inform....