The head office of Dodo Brands Pizzerias will move from the British Virgin Islands to Astana, Kazakhstan. The CFO of the large chain recently announced the decision in a telegram channel.
“Today we would like to share with you the news that the Board of Directors has approved the redomiciliation of the holding company from the BVI to the International Financial Center Astana (Republic of Kazakhstan) on December 15, 2023. For the purpose of approval of this decision, an absentee vote of shareholders will be held from January 10 to January 26, 2024”, said Lina Naumova, the CFO of Dodo Brands. She added that they will hold an online meeting with the company’s shareholders at the end of this month and will announce the details later.
Naumova took office as CFO on January 1, 2024.
Dodo Brands is one in a growing list of companies that in the past few years have decided to change their legal address to Kazakhstan. Several companies that closed their offices in Russia have already relocated to Kazakhstan, for instance.
In fact, in the summer of 2022, the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, instructed the government to create all the necessary conditions for the relocation of companies that have left Russia. Tokayev has also said that 1,400 large foreign companies left the Russian market, emphasizing that this presented a good opportunity for Kazakhstan.
More than 20 companies have moved their regional offices and relocated their teams of specialists to Kazakhstan in 2022. Among them there are large global giants such as InDriver (USA), Honeywell (USA), Weir Minerals (UK), Marubeni (Japan), and Koppert (Netherlands), among others.
Furthermore, popular Chinese company TikTok opened its the regional office for Central Asia and the Caucasus in Almaty in October 2022 after freezing activities in Moscow and deciding to expand cooperation with Kazakhstan.
In 2022, Kazakhstan also localized production of Ural Motorcycles (Russia/USA); car seat covers, interior and trunk mats from RIVAL (Russia); breathing circuits for ventilators R-Vent Medical (Turkey), and United Concrete Canvas (UK). Also in 2022, agreements were reached with German companies to begin construction of plants in Kazakhstan for the production of gypsum board (with Knauff) and trailed agricultural machinery (with Reimann).
On November 16, 2022, President Tokayev gave the start of construction of another plant — this one to produce Chery, Changan and Great Wall brand cars. In May 2023, Kazakhstani company Astana Motors received permission to produce the cars. Production is planned to start next year and the company intends to make about 90,000 cars a year.
The chairman of the National Company “Kazakh Invest”, Zhandos Temirgali, noted that 2023 results include 80 companies, 41 of which have already completed the move to Kazakhstan in 2022-2023, and the rest are in active negotiations.
Temirgali said, “The total value of the projects amounted to about $1.5 billion. For example, Wabtec not only relocated a regional office, but also started a project to produce locomotives and components for them. Microsoft Corporation opened a multi-regional hub in Kazakhstan. Wika launched the production of equipment for the oil and gas industry.”
According to Kazakhstan’s law, any such enterprise registered in the country and is a tax resident will have equal rights with other local companies, including in terms of access to state support and financing.
