ASTANA (TCA) — The international presentation of the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC) will take place in December 2017 in Astana, AIFC Governor Kairat Kelimbetov said at a press conference on September 20, the official website of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan reported.
“In early December we are planning to hold the international presentation of the Astana Financial Centre, next year we will directly concentrate on the Road Show of our organization. This is a very big work, which in our opinion will allow the AIFC and the platform which has been created after Expo-2017 in Astana to become the center of attracting direct foreign investments,” Kelimbetov said.
“Astana can take the role of financial and technological hub in the regions of Central Asia, the Eurasian Economic Union, as well as in the cooperation within [China’s] One Belt, One Road initiative,” Kelimbetov said.
He said that the AIFC plans to work on six priority directions. The most important of them is the development of capital market.
“Kazakhstan’s financial sector is concentrated more on the work of bank institutions and other traditional instruments of cooperation with citizens. We are working on creation of a so-called banking financial community, and the capital markets will significantly improve the situation in the financial sector of Kazakhstan and create the regional platform for the development of stock markets in our region,” Kelimbetov said.
The second and third priorities, according to Kelimbetov, are the management of private and state assets, funds, as well as the management of private parties’ welfare.
The fourth direction is Islamic finance. Kelimbetov stressed that a number of major summits of Islamic cooperation was held this year, including in Kazakhstan. In general, in the direction of Islamic finance, Kazakhstan has an opportunity to become a leading country both in Central Asia and the Eurasian region.
The fifth direction is new financial technologies.
As the sixth direction, he noted the introduction and development of tools for “green financing”. In this regard, the high-tech platform of Astana Expo-2017 will have to provide the physical infrastructure for research in the field of green technologies, while AIFC will be its financial component.
Talking about specific benefits for investors, Kelimbetov said that “We will also have the appropriate benefits for 50 years on the corporate income, individual income taxes.”
“I think our plans for the development of infrastructure, digital economy, and traditional competitive clusters will be interesting for investors. Until 2025, we expect to attract up to $40 billion of investments,” Kelimbetov concluded.
