Kazakhstan Business & Economy - The Times Of Central Asia

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Finance

Kazakhstan Binance Plan Regional Settlement Hub

Kazakhstan plans to host a regional settlement hub for the Binance group, serving clients across Central Asia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and Eastern Europe. If the project secures regulatory approval, some of the cross-border payments and settlement operations of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange could be handled through Kazakhstan’s jurisdiction. The National Bank of Kazakhstan announced on September 7 that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Binance Investments Co. The project calls for the creation of a Binance group entity in Kazakhstan and the localization of some of the group’s regional operations and infrastructure. The new entity would seek a National Bank license as a Category I payment organization. According to the regulator, the hub will handle international payments and money transfers, including settlements related to digital asset transactions for clients of the global Binance group from Central Asia, the CIS, and Eastern Europe. Binance said the parties have prepared a roadmap covering the development of payment infrastructure, licensing, and the launch of new products. Kazakhstan has spent several years building a regulated digital asset market. The new project would use that framework to serve clients beyond the country’s borders. Binance already operates in Kazakhstan through its subsidiary Binance Kazakhstan. The company is licensed by the Astana Financial Services Authority (AFSA), the regulator of the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), to operate a digital asset trading facility and provide custody and other regulated financial services. For the settlement hub, the National Bank says a Binance group entity and supporting infrastructure would be established in Kazakhstan and licensed by the central bank. The payment operation would therefore sit alongside Binance Kazakhstan’s existing AFSA-regulated digital asset platform under a different regulatory framework. “The development of digital financial technologies and modern payment solutions is one of the important areas in the transformation of Kazakhstan’s financial sector,” National Bank Deputy Governor Binur Zhalenov said. According to him, the regulator is interested in fostering innovation while maintaining the reliability of payment infrastructure and the stability of the financial system. Kazakhstan already has several building blocks for developing such services: a regulated digital asset market within the AIFC, the digital tenge, and the National Bank’s payment infrastructure. Binance would gain a jurisdiction with an established digital asset regulatory framework, while Kazakhstan aims to attract technological expertise and develop the export potential of its financial services. The settlement hub is one of several projects Binance is discussing with Kazakh authorities. On September 4, the company announced three memorandums – with the National Bank, the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, and the AIFC. The agreements cover payment infrastructure, digital assets, and investment instruments, including exploration of a potential stablecoin. The Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development said the parties plan to explore the issuance of a stablecoin in Kazakhstan, develop payments involving digital assets, and improve the tax and judicial framework governing the market. The parameters of a potential stablecoin have not yet been disclosed. The prospective issuer, reserve mechanism, and...

Nuclear Power Plant

Kazakhstan Nuclear Power Plant Contract Signed with Rosatom

Kazakhstan has formalized plans to build its first nuclear power plant, signing the main construction contract with Russia’s Rosatom for a two-reactor facility near Lake Balkhash. The plant, preliminarily estimated to cost around $16.4 billion, will have a combined capacity of about 2.4 gigawatts, with most of the financing expected to come through a Russian state export loan. Rosatom was selected to lead the project in June 2025, meaning the latest agreement formalizes a decision made more than a year ago. Major construction work is expected to begin in 2027. The contract was signed on September 3 in Vladivostok during the Eastern Economic Forum. Kazakhstan Nuclear Power Plants, the state-owned company established to implement nuclear projects, signed the agreement with Atomstroyexport, Rosatom’s engineering subsidiary. The contract covers engineering, equipment supply, and construction of the plant. Almassadam Satkaliyev, chairman of Kazakhstan’s Atomic Energy Agency, said after the signing that Rosatom is expected to obtain the necessary site license in 2027, allowing construction to begin. He had previously identified 2034 as the target for bringing the first unit online, while the full construction cycle is expected to take about a decade. The nuclear power plant will be built near the village of Ulken on the western shore of Lake Balkhash, about 400 kilometers from Almaty. It will consist of two Russian-designed VVER-1200 reactors with a combined capacity of around 2.4 gigawatts. That is equivalent to about 9% of Kazakhstan’s current installed generating capacity. Site preparation began in the summer of 2025. Specialists started engineering surveys and drilling wells to study the site’s suitability for the plant. Kazakhstan is returning to nuclear power generation after more than a quarter of a century. The Soviet-built BN-350 reactor in Aktau, which supplied electricity and district heating and supported large-scale seawater desalination, ceased operations in 1999. Kazakhstan has had no operating nuclear power reactors since then. In October 2024, the construction of a new nuclear power plant was put to a nationwide referendum, with a majority of participating voters supporting the proposal. In June 2025, Kazakhstan selected Rosatom to lead the international consortium for the project. The Russian proposal ranked first among four options considered, alongside bids from China’s CNNC, France’s EDF, and South Korea’s KHNP. The preliminary cost of the nuclear power plant is estimated at around $16.4 billion. Of that amount, approximately $14.4 billion is expected to cover the two generating units, with another roughly $2 billion allocated for infrastructure, physical protection systems, and fuel for the warranty period. Most of the project is expected to be financed through a Russian state export loan. The detailed financing terms have not yet been made public. Kazakhstan is also allocating its own funds. The draft national budget for 2027-2029 earmarks 818.3 billion tenge, or about $1.7 billion, to increase the capital of Kazakhstan Nuclear Power Plants. Of that amount, 247.9 billion tenge is planned for 2027, 303.1 billion for 2028, and 267.3 billion for 2029. Kazakh authorities intend to involve domestic companies in construction, equipment manufacturing, and the...

Geology

Kazakhstan Mineral Deposits: 54 New Sites Added to State Register

Kazakhstan is looking beyond its traditional strengths in oil, gold, and iron ore as it expands its mineral resource base. Fifty-four deposits were added to the state register in 2024 and 2025, while geologists are focusing more closely on lithium, tungsten, and rare earth elements as demand grows alongside clean-energy and high-tech manufacturing. The state register is Kazakhstan’s official inventory of mineral deposits, recording their resources and reserves, level of exploration and development, and changes resulting from extraction or reassessment. In 2024, 35 deposits were added to the register for the first time, followed by another 19 a year later. Across the same two-year period, exploration and reassessments added 262.2 million tons of iron ore, 199 million tons of oil, 157.2 tons of gold, and 22 billion cubic meters of gas to the country’s recorded resources and reserves. The register now includes around 10,000 deposits. The recorded resource base also increased for silver, copper, zinc, lead, chromium ore, manganese, and phosphorite. Geologists are also turning their attention to metals that have traditionally remained in the shadow of Kazakhstan’s main extractive industries. The country is assessing its potential for lithium, tungsten, molybdenum, and other rare metals and rare earth elements. Among the deposits under study are Karaoba, which contains tungsten, and the Karagailyaktas, Akhmetkino, and Akhmirovskoye lithium deposits. Several major molybdenum deposits are located in the Karaganda Region. A separate exploration program focuses on rare earth elements, which are used in permanent magnets, electric motors, electronics, wind turbines, and a range of defense technologies. Studies have been completed at 11 exploration sites, while four prospective areas within Kuyrektykol have forecast resources estimated at 935,400 tons. The government identifies Kuyrektykol in the Karaganda Region as the most promising of these sites. Geologists have identified lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, and yttrium there. In 2025, officials said the wider Zhana Kazakhstan area, which encompasses almost all of Kuyrektykol, could contain more than 20 million tons of rare earth metals at depths of up to 300 meters. Much of this, however, remains at the geological assessment stage. The forecast resource estimates still need to be confirmed through further exploration before they can be treated as mineable reserves and the economics of extraction can be determined. Kazakhstan could also find growing demand abroad for these resources. The United States and the European Union are seeking new sources of critical minerals and trying to reduce their dependence on China, particularly in rare earth processing. Astana, meanwhile, is encouraging foreign partners to go beyond buying raw materials and invest in processing inside Kazakhstan. The search for new deposits is also becoming more expensive and more ambitious. Over the next three years, Kazakhstan plans to invest more than $470 million in state-funded geological exploration – more than it spent over the previous 15 years. The program includes new geological mapping, while broader modernization efforts include digitizing historical geological data and using artificial intelligence to help identify promising areas. Only a fraction of identified resources, however, ultimately make the transition to...

Agricultural Technologies

Kazakhstan Tests Drone System for Releasing Beneficial Insects To Fight Agricultural Pests

Kazakh scientists have developed BioDrop, a system in which drones scatter biodegradable capsules containing beneficial insects over fields to combat agricultural pests. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, tests showed that the treatment takes several times less time than manually releasing entomophagous insects, while biological control effectiveness reaches 81%-83%. The technology is already being used by four farms. The system was developed by specialists at the Zhazken Zhiyembayev Kazakh Research Institute of Plant Protection and Quarantine. It consists of a drone, an automated dispensing device, and biodegradable spherical capsules. Inside the capsules are entomophagous insects — natural enemies of agricultural pests. BioDrop uses Trichogramma, microscopic parasitoid wasps that attack pest eggs, and Habrobracon hebetor, which targets pest larvae. The insects pose no danger to people or plants. The drone follows a predetermined route across a field and automatically releases the capsules. Their design protects the biological material when they land, after which the insects emerge and begin searching for pests. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, 14 days after entomophagous insects were released manually, biological control effectiveness stood at 70%-73%. BioDrop achieved 81%-83%. Treating the experimental plot manually took 1-1.5 hours, while the drone completed the same work in 10-15 minutes, including equipment preparation. The Kazakh system follows an increasingly visible international trend in agriculture. Researchers in China previously developed an automated drone-based system for releasing Trichogramma. In field trials, it achieved more than 99% effective coverage of the target area and an average pest-control effectiveness of about 84%. Similar experiments have been conducted in Canada, where drones were used to release Trichogramma against pests affecting corn and forests. Researchers noted that traditional manual placement of biological control agents is time-consuming, while aerial application can be expensive. Kazakhstan has also been testing drones for biological crop protection for several years. Researchers from the same institute have used biological preparations on several crops and UAVs to release entomophagous insects against cotton bollworm. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has included this work in its repository of green agriculture practices. The FAO says UAV releases achieved biological effectiveness of 70% against the second generation of cotton bollworm and 82.6% against the third. BioDrop develops this work into an integrated delivery system. A study by Kazakh researchers published in June 2026 describes biodegradable capsules produced using 3D printing and field trials in which biological effectiveness ranged from 69.5% to 82.8%. Practical use of BioDrop is still limited to four farms. The ministry has not provided details about the scale of its use on those farms, leaving its performance over larger commercial areas unclear. Drones are already being used in Kazakhstan’s agriculture to monitor soil and crop conditions. In the East Kazakhstan Region, researchers are combining drone imagery with artificial intelligence to assess fields and plan agricultural operations.

CERN

Kazakh Scientists to Gain More Opportunities to Work at CERN

Kazakhstan is preparing an agreement with CERN that would give its scientists more opportunities to participate in experiments and undertake research internships at one of the world’s leading particle physics centers. The talks come as the country begins developing nuclear power plants and faces a growing need for highly qualified physicists and engineers. The prospect was discussed at a meeting between Kazakhstan’s acting Minister of Science and Higher Education Sayasat Nurbek and CERN Director-General Mark Thomson. The two sides have already prepared a draft protocol expanding their 2018 cooperation agreement. The proposed mechanism would allow Kazakh scientists to undertake research internships and participate in CERN projects through the Scientific Internships program of Kazakhstan’s Center for International Programs. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, was founded in 1954. Its vast scientific complex is located near Geneva on the border between Switzerland and France. It is home to the Large Hadron Collider, a 27-kilometer particle accelerator, used by physicists to accelerate particles to nearly the speed of light, collide them, and study the fundamental structure of matter. The ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider led to the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, one of the most important breakthroughs in modern physics. CERN has 25 Member States and another 11 Associate Member States. Kazakhstan belongs to neither group. Its cooperation with the organization is based on the 2018 agreement. The draft protocol is intended to create a more formal mechanism for Kazakh researchers to participate in CERN research. For Kazakhstan, training scientists and engineers has become more pressing following the decision to develop nuclear power. In an October 2024 referendum, 71.12% of those who voted supported the construction of a nuclear power plant. In June 2025, Russia’s Rosatom was selected to lead the consortium building the country’s first nuclear power plant near the village of Ulken on the shore of Lake Balkhash, about 400 kilometers from Almaty. Kazakhstan has since expanded those ambitions. A nuclear industry strategy approved in April 2026 calls for at least three nuclear power plants to be operating by 2050. China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has been selected to lead the development of Kazakhstan’s second nuclear power plant. Plans for a third plant are also being developed, although the technology and contractor have not yet been definitively determined. Buying reactors alone will not be enough – the country also needs its own specialists. Kazakhstan is already allocating dedicated places under the international Bolashak scholarship program to train nuclear energy professionals, while local universities are launching programs for future nuclear power plant employees. Bolashak is a state-funded program that pays for Kazakh citizens to study at universities abroad. While CERN does not train nuclear power plant operators, working at the center can give physicists and engineers experience with particle accelerators, sophisticated detectors, computing systems, and international scientific experiments. For Kazakhstan, this offers an opportunity to develop its own scientific expertise in parallel with training personnel specifically for nuclear power plants.

Agriculture

Weather Boosts Early Kazakhstan Grain Harvest

An unusually hot summer has led to an earlier grain harvest in Kazakhstan. Farmers have already collected 7.7 million tons of grain from roughly a third of the country’s grain-growing area, almost twice as much land as had been harvested at the same point last year. The first batches of wheat are also showing noticeably better quality – an important factor for Kazakhstan’s grain exports to Central Asia and other markets. By this point in 2025, farmers had collected 3.9 million tons of grain, compared with 7.7 million tons this year. The government said in mid-August that warm weather had brought the harvest forward, adding that newer farm machinery and modern farming technology had helped farmers increase the pace. It is still too early to say whether Kazakhstan will repeat its record harvest of 2025. Last year, the country produced more than 27 million tons of grain, including 20.3 million tons of wheat. Expectations for this year had been more cautious. Dry conditions in central and eastern Kazakhstan raised concerns about a smaller crop, and some industry experts suggested production could fall by 15%-20% from last year. The early results, however, suggest the wheat may be of better quality. Of the soft wheat already delivered to grain elevators and tested, 78% has been classified as Grade 3 and another 14% as Grade 4. Grade 5 and ungraded wheat account for 7%. Grade 3 wheat is suitable for flour and bread production. The early figures compare favorably with last year, when 53% of soft wheat was classified in Grades 1-3 and 35% as Grade 4. Gluten levels, another measure of wheat quality, are also strong. Of the wheat tested, 56% has a gluten content above 28%, while another 19% is in the 25%-27% range. That promises to be a boon for exports. Kazakhstan is a major supplier of grain and flour to Central Asia, and also sells to Afghanistan, China, and other markets. A larger share of higher-quality wheat gives exporters more opportunities to sell into higher-value markets. Kazakhstan is also changing what it grows. The government has been reducing the area planted with wheat and encouraging farmers to grow more oilseeds and other more profitable crops. In 2025, the oilseed harvest reached a record of nearly 5 million tons. This year’s oilseed harvest is only just beginning, with 244,000 tons collected so far. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, 98% of grain and oilseed crops are currently in good or satisfactory condition. With 35.5% of the grain-growing area harvested so far, the early results point to better wheat quality, but the final size of the crop will depend heavily on the harvest in Kazakhstan’s main grain-producing regions in the north.