Features - The Times Of Central Asia

Viewing results 13 - 18 of 2584

Astana Finance Days 2026

Astana Finance Days: Rewiring Finance at Institutional Scale – The Case for Deeper Financial Markets

Kazakhstan needs deeper financial markets and a system less dependent on banks, senior financial officials told Astana Finance Days on September 9, 2026. Speakers at the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) explored how digital finance could support that shift during the plenary session, "Innovation at Institutional Scale: Rewiring the Architecture of Finance." The turnout was standing-room only. Over the next fifty minutes, the panelists discussed Kazakhstan’s ambitions as a financial hub and the conditions needed to advance them. Moderator Sallianne Taylor, Bloomberg's EMEA Head of Government Relations, opened by asking what is fundamentally changing in the architecture of global finance, and what it means for Kazakhstan. There were five panelists: Timur Suleimenov, Governor of the National Bank of Kazakhstan; Renat Bekturov, Governor of the AIFC; Timur Turlov, Chief Executive of Freedom Holding Corp.; Sergio Mello, Global Head of Stablecoin Solutions at Anchorage Digital; and Balaji Srinivasan, founder of Network School and bestselling author of The Network State. The Governor's Priority: Stability Before Speed Governor Suleimenov began by naming "geopolitical tension" as the backdrop to today's discussions. "This is the elephant in the room, which we cannot ignore," he said, without further comment. He then described trade and finance flows as changing fundamentally, pointing to "division across the Atlantic. We're seeing trade wars, semi-trade wars across the world." He explained that "finance has always been a partner with trade, investment and finance." That atmosphere of uncertainty "reshapes financial flows," he said. Turning to technology, he noted that "with the invention of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and everything in between, the traditional financial system has started to undergo very fundamental change. I think we're still in the rule-setting phase." As a result, he said, "There is no set of global rules for decentralized finance, for digital finance, crypto finance. Many countries are looking to strike the right balance between the traditional financial institutions such as banks or commodities or securities markets, and the new ways of doing finance that the market is offering." For Kazakhstan specifically, he argued the moment favors the country rather than threatens it. "I think for Kazakhstan, it's more of an opportunity," he said, pointing to its standing as the region's largest economy by GDP and GDP per capita, and its position as "the biggest financial system, the best financial system, the most capitalized" in Central Asia. That confidence carried into the moderator's next question: "As a central banker, how do you balance innovation with preserving that financial stability and trust?" Suleimenov called it "a never-ending story," then offered the line that framed the whole session: "When you see something new, and you don't have the rules for it, of course you have to evaluate it based on its merits and based on principles rather than rules, and then you come up with rules." He was candid about the risk that comes with new financial technology, but just as quick to put it in proportion. "What we've been seeing in Kazakhstan, I mean, it's 90% positive," he said, acknowledging...

Baikonur Cosmodrome

Space Days Kazakhstan Highlights Push Beyond Baikonur

Kazakhstan is home to Baikonur, the cosmodrome from which the Space Age began, but the country has spent three decades trying to turn that Soviet inheritance into a space sector of its own. At Space Days Kazakhstan, held on September 7–9 in Astana and Baikonur, Kazakhstan presented new satellite projects and plans for international cooperation. A day later, talks with China were announced on a separate five-satellite network for Central Asia. By 2030, Astana plans to assemble an international constellation of nine Earth-observation satellites, six of them Kazakh. The country is also upgrading its national satellite communications system, developing new Earth-observation spacecraft at home, and expanding cooperation with China and other partners. Kazakhstan still relies heavily on Russia at Baikonur, and many of its newer projects depend on foreign technology and cooperation. Nevertheless, Astana is seeking greater control over the infrastructure and spacecraft on its own territory while widening the number of countries it works with. Taking More Control at Baikonur One of the clearest examples of Kazakhstan’s attempt to gain more control over its space sector is Baiterek, a joint project with Russia that dates back to 2004. The original agreement called for a new launch complex at Baikonur. But the project spent much of the next two decades being redesigned as Russia changed the rocket it planned to use. Baiterek was first intended for the Angara rocket, then Zenit, and finally Soyuz-5, known in Kazakhstan as Sunkar. Each change brought further delays. After launch targets in 2023, 2024, and 2025 slipped, Soyuz-5 finally lifted off from Baikonur on April 30, 2026. The rocket carried a dummy payload on the first flight in the test program. The launch mattered less for what it carried than for what it represented. Kazakhstan now operates the launch pad and ground infrastructure used by Baiterek, giving it a larger role at a cosmodrome long dominated by Russia. But Russia still builds the rocket. That reflects the wider relationship at Baikonur. The cosmodrome remained on Kazakh territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but Russia leases it through 2050 for $115 million a year and continues to use it for its human spaceflight program. In July 2026, Baikonur was again used for an international mission to the ISS. Kazakhstan is therefore not replacing Russia at Baikonur. It is trying to take a larger role in a space complex where Russia remains deeply embedded. But launch infrastructure is only one part of Kazakhstan’s attempt to develop capabilities of its own. Increasingly, the focus is on satellites. Building Satellites at Home KazSat is the country’s national satellite communications and broadcasting system. KazSat-3 currently provides data transmission, television, and other communications services. Its planned operating life ends in late 2029. KazSat-3R is being developed as its replacement. The national operator, the Republican Center for Space Communication, invited more than 40 spacecraft manufacturers to participate in the selection process. Fourteen companies responded: two from Kazakhstan and twelve from abroad. The operator plans to cover more than half...

Architectural Heritage

Ashgabat’s Postwar Architecture Is Disappearing One Building at a Time

In July, UNESCO added ten examples of Tashkent’s modernist architecture to the World Heritage List, recognizing the buildings and urban complexes that helped reshape the Uzbek capital after the devastating 1966 earthquake. In neighboring Kazakhstan, prominent Soviet-era buildings in Almaty are protected through national and local heritage registers. Turkmenistan has also gained international recognition for ancient sites such as Merv and Nisa, along with traditions of carpet weaving and horse breeding. Yet Ashgabat’s 20th-century architecture remains largely absent from this system of recognition. This has taken on added urgency because some of the buildings that tell the story of modern Ashgabat are already disappearing. [caption id="attachment_56051" align="aligncenter" width="1774"] Image: TCA, Stephen M. Bland[/caption] In August 2026, turkmen.news reported the demolition of several buildings near Ashgabat’s 30th microdistrict. Some were residential blocks. Although some occupants received replacement apartments, other families objected to the relocation terms. In February, the former building of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography on Azadi Street was also demolished. At different times, it had housed a court and the Cultural Heritage Center. An additional floor and marble cladding had already changed its appearance, although some neoclassical elements survived. Once a building has been demolished, its architecture can be studied only through archives and photographs. For Ashgabat, this is particularly significant because much of the city visible today emerged from one of the worst disasters in its history. The City After the Earthquake The 1948 Ashgabat earthquake struck on the night of October 6, destroying or severely damaging much of the city. The capital had to be largely rebuilt. Architectural historian Ruslan Muradov writes that postwar reconstruction began with two-story brick apartment buildings designed to meet higher seismic standards. Their facades featured decorative plasterwork and carved wooden elements on the loggias, or recessed balconies. New residential blocks were organized around shared courtyards and greenery. In the 1950s, the Academy of Sciences, the railway station, Turkmen State University, theaters, administrative buildings, and new housing transformed the city center. From the 1960s through the 1980s, hotels, public buildings, and residential districts added another architectural layer. Behind this architecture was the everyday life of several generations. Courtyards became extensions of apartments, while institutions and shops occupied the ground floors. The postwar city gradually became an ordinary, lived-in urban environment. Its surviving buildings still offer clues to how Ashgabat recovered after 1948. They show how seismic risk changed construction, how the climate influenced housing design, and how planners used the spaces between buildings. But unlike some neighboring capitals, Ashgabat has no publicly available inventory identifying the most significant examples of its postwar architecture. The time available to document them is shrinking. [caption id="attachment_56053" align="alignnone" width="1774"] Image: TCA, Stephen M. Bland[/caption] Turkmenistan’s Heritage Focus Turkmenistan has five properties on the World Heritage List. Ancient Merv, Kunya-Urgench, and the Parthian Fortresses of Nisa make up three of them. The other two are transnational properties, the Silk Roads: Zarafshan-Karakum Corridor and the Cold Winter Deserts of Turan. Another nine sites are on the country’s Tentative...

Education

New OECD Assessment Reveals Central Asia’s Student Performance

International student assessments help governments identify where students are succeeding, where they are falling behind and how learning outcomes are changing over time. The Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, tests how well 15-year-olds can apply what they have learned in science, mathematics and reading to real-world problems. Run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the assessment is intended to identify weaknesses and track whether learning improves over time. The results released on September 8 show improvement in some areas, declines in others and significant gaps in the regional data. PISA 2025 placed particular emphasis on science and introduced a new assessment of computational problem-solving, part of its broader work on learning in the digital world. What the Results Show Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan participated nationally. Tajikistan was represented by Dushanbe rather than a national sample, while Turkmenistan did not participate. Participant Science Math Reading Comp. ProblemSolving Kazakhstan 420 414 385 449 Kyrgyzstan 363 364 344 388 Dushanbe, TJK 334 382 368 — Uzbekistan 438 N/A N/A 402 OECD average 482 463 461 500 Kazakhstan recorded the highest published regional scores in mathematics, reading and computational problem-solving, while Uzbekistan recorded the highest score in science. Uzbekistan’s mathematics and reading results were not published, preventing a complete comparison across the three core subjects. Central Asia remained below OECD averages, but Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan scored higher than several EU member states in some subjects. Across OECD countries, average mathematics and reading performance fell to the lowest levels yet recorded by PISA. Science was comparatively stable. What Changed The latest scores and the longer-term trends do not always point in the same direction. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan both participated in PISA in 2022, while Kyrgyzstan’s previous participation was in 2009. Country ComparisonPeriod Science Math Reading Kazakhstan 2022–2025 −4 −12 −1 Kyrgyzstan 2009–2025 +33 +33 +30 Uzbekistan 2022–2025 +83 N/A N/A Kazakhstan’s mathematics score fell by about 12 points from 2022, a statistically significant decline for the country. Its smaller declines in science and reading were not statistically significant. Kyrgyzstan improved in mathematics, reading and science compared with its previous participation. The gains cover 16 years rather than a single PISA cycle. Uzbekistan recorded the largest movement in the regional results. Its science score rose from 355 in 2022 to 438 in 2025, an increase of 83 points. That was also the largest science gain among education systems with comparable results worldwide and more than twice the next-largest increase of 38 points. What Other Assessments Show Other international assessments help put the larger changes in context. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were the only Central Asian countries to participate in the 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS. The assessment tests younger students and uses a different methodology from PISA. Among eighth-graders, Kazakhstan scored 443 in science and Uzbekistan 396. Two years later, PISA recorded science scores of 420 for Kazakhstan and 438 for Uzbekistan. The assessments cover different students and testing methods, so the scores cannot be compared directly....

Banking

Uzbekistan Pitches Decades of Tax Breaks to Financial Firms

Uzbekistan is offering qualifying financial firms nearly half a century of tax exemptions to set up in Tashkent. The goal is to attract private capital into an economy where state-owned banks still control most banking assets. On September 10, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev appointed his daughter, Saida Mirziyoyeva, to head the planned Tashkent International Financial Centre, Reuters reported. She has led the presidential administration since 2025. Mirziyoyev announced the project at June’s Tashkent International Investment Forum, promising free capital movement alongside tax incentives. Its legal framework would draw on English common law principles, as is the case with Kazakhstan’s Astana International Financial Centre. Who Gets the Tax Breaks? Under the founding law, qualifying participants would receive income and social tax exemptions on financial services income until January 1, 2076. Eligibility requires an actual economic presence in the center and compliance with its rules. The income incentives exclude members of multinational groups with annual revenues of at least €750 million in two of the preceding four fiscal years. Those firms face a domestic top-up tax. The offer is therefore less generous for large multinational groups. A global bank would need a commercial reason to enter Uzbekistan beyond the prospect of a lower tax bill. Most of the foreign businesses operating in Uzbekistan are already concentrated in Tashkent. Almost 63% of the country’s foreign-invested enterprises were based in the capital as of June 1, 2026. Financial firms entering the city would therefore have an existing customer base to pursue, although the numbers alone reveal little about demand for particular services. The domestic banking market does offer scope for competition. In its 2026 assessment, the IMF reported that nine state-owned commercial banks accounted for 63% of banking assets. It also noted delays in privatizing two large banks and urged the authorities to withdraw directed and preferential lending. The center could attract private lenders and help more Uzbek businesses obtain loans. However, simply moving existing deals there to reduce tax bills would do little to expand access to credit. Astana’s Head Start Kazakhstan has operated its financial center since 2018. Its AIFC Court sits outside the national judicial system and uses procedures based on English common law. Businesses can also agree to bring disputes there even when those disputes originate outside the center. The court works directly with Kazakhstan’s authorities to enforce its judgments, and says its first ruling resulted in full payment through private bailiffs. That gives prospective users a concrete example of how a commercial judgment can lead to the recovery of a debt. Uzbekistan’s law likewise provides for an independent commercial court and nationwide recognition of its final judgments. It requires judgments to be published within 30 days, subject to limited confidentiality protections. For lenders, that could reduce uncertainty about committing money to an unfamiliar market. Tashkent would still need to establish a record of decisions and enforcement comparable to the experience available in Astana. The law allows 12 months to adopt essential operating rules, extendable by six months. Activation then requires...

Astana Finance Days 2026

From Transit to Capital: What Investors Were Looking for in Kazakhstan at Astana Finance Days

On the second day of Astana Finance Days, Kazakhstan was trying to answer the question that follows almost every discussion about new railways, power plants, data centers, and factories: where will the money come from? International banks, asset managers, and stock exchanges gathered in Astana, and the conversation quickly reached a point – foreign capital is interested in the country, but its domestic stock market remains too small for many large investors. From Transit to Transactions The title of the first major discussion of the second day – “From Transit to Transactions” – neatly captured the idea. Kazakhstan already earns money from its position between China and Europe and is investing billions in railways, ports, and energy infrastructure. Now Astana wants financial transactions to move alongside the freight, and some of that capital to remain in the country. The Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), where the forum is being held, was created partly for that purpose. It is a separate financial jurisdiction within Kazakhstan, with its own regulator, court, and legal framework based on the principles of English common law. According to the center, by June 2026 its platform had helped attract $25.3 billion in investment to Kazakhstan, while the number of registered companies had exceeded 5,800. But the presence of international companies does not necessarily mean they are ready to invest. Jad Ellawn, Managing Partner for the Middle East at Brookfield, one of the world’s largest alternative asset managers, began with three conditions. “The fundamental principles for an investor looking to enter a country consist of three components. First is having the proper legislation. Second is respect for capital: a country needs to demonstrate that capital is important to it not only domestically, but beyond its borders. Third is scalability,” he said. “In addition to energy resources, Kazakhstan has many other natural resources, and your country is the ninth-largest country in the world. This means you have many potential industries that you could develop, unlike the Gulf.” Yilmaz Kocagoz of Goldman Sachs, one of the largest U.S. investment banks, looked at Kazakhstan through the lens of manufacturing and infrastructure. “For Kazakhstan to diversify its economy beyond commodities, it needs to develop manufacturing and infrastructure,” he said. Kocagoz also pointed to Kazakhstan’s relatively low government debt burden. For an investor, that means a smaller share of the country’s future revenues is already committed to servicing a large public debt. Nurlan Zhakupov, the CEO of Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna, put a price tag on the country’s investment program: more than 100 projects worth $105 billion. “We see demand from local businesses and enormous interest from foreign partners. We are also seeing growing consumption of electricity and natural gas, as well as demand for the transportation of electricity, oil, gas, and petroleum products,” Zhakupov said. He ended with an invitation: “Overall, Kazakhstan currently has a good business climate, and now is a good time to enter the Kazakh economy.” The next discussion in the same building helped explain why that does...