Kazakhstan’s minister for industry and construction, Kanat Sharlapaev, recently used a government meeting to touch upon the growth of the town of Ekibastuz. Located in the northern Pavlodar region, Ekibastuz’s economy centers on metallurgy and railway construction.
Pavlodar region’s metallurgical sector is set to benefit from the creation in Ekibastuz of an industrial zone, whose main investor will be a company named Mineral Product LLP. The zone will house an iron smelter, a ferroalloy plant, and a steel plant, creating 800 jobs during the zone’s construction and 4,000 once the facilities are in operation. The entire Ekibastuz complex is expected to attract more than 100 billion tenge (~$224 million) in investment.
Ekibastuz is one of Kazakhstan’s single-industry towns, whose economy is dominated by one industrial sector, or one corporate entity that is focused on a particular sector. Such towns often have a difficult dependence on the performance of a particular enterprise or industry, and are often subject to the gyrations and whims of particular commodities markets.
