Why Kazakhstan Is Moving Ahead in GDP Per Capita

The International Monetary Fund has projected Kazakhstan to reach roughly $23,170 in nominal GDP per capita by 2031. On the same current-dollar measure, it is projected to pass China around 2026 and Russia by 2031. The comparison is a milestone, but it requires perspective. It is neither a purchasing-power verdict nor a comprehensive measure of household welfare. It nevertheless marks Kazakhstan’s entry into a higher income band. The question is how a state that began independence amid post-Soviet economic disruption reached this stage. How Kazakhstan Reached This Point Kazakhstan’s present position rests on a three-decade progression of state capacity, resource development, and institutional learning. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the country did not inherit a working growth model. It inherited broken production chains, institutional rupture, and inflation. It therefore faced the task of building a market economy out of an administrative-command system. In current U.S. dollars, GDP per capita stood near $1,400 in 1991, and exceeded $14,000 by 2024; in constant-dollar terms, the gain was smaller but still substantial. Hydrocarbons supplied the base, but political institutions and leadership acumen determined how much of that base could survive volatility. The path since 1991 has not been smooth. The 1990s brought collapse and stabilization. The 2000s brought hydrocarbon acceleration, foreign direct investment, and a rise in nominal GDP per capita climbing from a little more than $1,000 in 2000 to more than $8,000 in 2008. The global financial crisis interrupted the rise without destroying the model. The early 2010s brought recovery. The 2014–2016 oil-price and exchange-rate shock then tested the foundations already built, as the current-dollar figure fell sharply while real output per person proved more stable. COVID imposed another interruption. The post-2020 rebound belongs to that sequence. The Tokayev agenda belongs to this third stage of institutional learning. It did not create the GDP per capita trajectory over three decades, but today the issue has shifted from accumulation to stewardship. The inherited growth model had to be made more competitive, more rules-based, more socially visible, and more sustainable. Since 2022, the government has treated de-monopolization, asset recovery, social investment, and private-sector development as connected elements of the same governing effort. The IMF’s latest assessment shows the pressure inside that effort: growth remains strong, supported by oil output and non-oil activity, while fiscal, inflationary, and quasi-state-sector pressures still require correction. The Reform Program and Its Results Decree No. 542, signed in May 2024, set out measures to liberalize the economy, limit expansion of the quasi-state sector, revise privatization criteria, strengthen competition, and improve conditions for entrepreneurship. Its operative terms are competition, privatization, reduced state participation, and lower business costs. The decree temporarily halts the creation of new quasi-state entities and provides for an audit of state and quasi-state assets, partly to identify candidates for privatization. It also incorporates reforms affecting procurement and business regulation. The decree seeks to bend Kazakhstan’s accumulated macroeconomic trajectory toward commercial governance. The challenge is not to remove state capacity but to prevent it from crowding out private...