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Eurasian economic research

Kazakhstan: the basics — country data, regions and industries, economy and currency, education and technology, statistics

Population about 20.6 million; capital Astana. An overview of basic country data, including the new constitution of 2026, the resource and heavy-industry regions and cities that sustain the economy beyond Astana and Almaty, the size and structure of the economy, oil and uranium exports and transport routes, inflation-targeting monetary policy and the tenge, STEM education, IT, AI and fintech, and the state of the country's two stock exchanges, drawn from the statistical office, the National Bank and international institutions.

This series, Eurasian economic research, follows Central Asia and the Caucasus, with particular attention to Kazakhstan and Armenia. Following the article on Armenia, this article surveys Kazakhstan’s territory, population and society, its modern history, its regional economy beyond the capital, the size and structure of its economy, trade and natural resources, its currency and monetary policy, public finances and the external sector, education and technology industries, and its financial and capital markets, and indicates where the main statistics can be found. All figures are taken from publications consulted on 14 October 2026.

There are three broad reasons for following Kazakhstan closely. The first is that it is the largest economy in Central Asia: its nominal GDP in 2025 was the largest of the region’s five countries (1). The second is that natural resources shape the economy’s movements to a great extent. Crude oil accounts for about half of exports (2), and in 2024 the country produced 39% of the world’s mined uranium (3). At the same time, Kazakhstan has operated a floating exchange rate and an inflation-targeting framework since 2015 (4), and the relationship between the National Fund, which accumulates resource revenue, and the National Bank’s foreign exchange operations can be traced comparatively well in the statistics. The IMF finds “clear signs of overheating” in the economy in 2025, and identifies higher oil output, loose fiscal policy, expanding quasi-fiscal activity and a surge in consumer lending as the factors that pushed growth up (5). The country is therefore well suited to observing how resource revenue, public finances and monetary policy interact. The third is that Kazakhstan is a hub of overland transport linking China, Russia and Europe, and since 2022 the route across the Caspian Sea has gained in importance (6). As a securities market, Kazakhstan has two exchanges, the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) and the Astana International Exchange (AIX). The World Bank, however, judges that while the foundations of the capital market are sound, the institutional investor base is extremely thin apart from the Unified Accumulative Pension Fund, and that issuers are concentrated in the government and quasi-government sectors (7).

Territory, population and society

The Republic of Kazakhstan (Қазақстан Республикасы, Республика Казахстан) has its capital at Astana and an area of 2,724,900 km², the ninth largest in the world (8). It borders Russia to the north and west (7,591 km of frontier), China to the east (1,783 km), and Kyrgyzstan (1,242 km), Uzbekistan (2,351 km) and Turkmenistan (426 km) to the south, and it is the largest landlocked country in the world. In the west it faces the north-eastern part of the Caspian Sea, and it shares the Aral Sea with Uzbekistan. Desert covers 44% of the territory, semi-desert 14% and grassland (steppe) 26%, while forest accounts for only 5.5%. The mountain ranges include the Tian Shan and the Altai. The climate is sharply continental, and since 1 March 2024 the whole country has used a single time zone (UTC+5) (8).

The de jure population stood at 20.5906 million on 1 July 2026, about 64% of it urban (9). This is an estimate that starts from the most recent census (2021) and adds births and immigration and subtracts deaths and emigration (9). The 2021 census counted 19.186 million people. Kazakhs made up 70.4% of the population and Russians 15.5%, followed by Uzbeks (3.2%), Ukrainians (2.0%), Uighurs (1.5%), Germans (1.2%) and Tatars (1.1%). In the previous census of 2009, Kazakhs accounted for 63.1% and Russians for 23.7%, so the composition changed considerably over twelve years (10).

On religion, the 2021 census, taking the whole population as the denominator, recorded 69.31% as Muslim, 17.19% as Christian (17.04% Orthodox) and 2.25% as having no religion. However, 11.01% declined to answer, and these shares include them in the denominator (10). Excluding those who declined to answer, Muslims account for about 78% and Christians for about 19% (the author’s calculation).

The 2026 constitution establishes Kazakh as the state language and provides that Russian is officially used “alongside” Kazakh in state bodies and local government (Article 9) (11). Article 7 of the previous constitution (1995) had provided that Russian was used “on an equal basis” with Kazakh (12). According to the 2021 census, 80.1% of the population aged five and over reported being able to speak Kazakh, but the share varies widely by ethnicity: 99.6% among Kazakhs and 25.1% among Russians (10). Kazakh is currently written in the Cyrillic alphabet. The government decided in 2017 to move to the Latin alphabet and in 2021 presented a new alphabet of 31 letters. The transition is proceeding in stages and is reported to be expected to finish in 2031 (13), but for the time being Cyrillic remains the script in practical use.

Kazakhstan is a unitary presidential republic (11). A new constitution was approved in a referendum on 15 March 2026 (turnout 73.12%, with 87.15% of those voting in favour) (14) and came into force on 1 July that year. Under the new constitution, the President serves a single seven-year term with no re-election, and this provision cannot be amended. Parliament was changed from the former bicameral body (the Senate and the Mazhilis) to a unicameral Kurultai (Курултай) of 145 seats, whose members are elected by proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency for five-year terms. The post of Vice-President was also created (11). The first Kurultai election took place on 23 August 2026 (turnout 74.08%), and Adilet (Әділет) won 110 seats (15). On 31 August, Yerlan Karin was appointed Vice-President (16). The President is Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, in office since 2019, who was re-elected in November 2022 with 81.31% of the vote (17).

Independence dates from 16 December 1991 (8). The national currency, the tenge (KZT), was introduced on 15 November 1993 (18). The treaty establishing the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) was signed in Astana on 29 May 2014 and entered into force on 1 January 2015; Kazakhstan is a founding member (19). Kazakhstan joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 30 November 2015 (20).

Key points of modern history

Several events are essential to understanding present-day Kazakhstan, and they are best taken in order. The famine of 1930–33, set against the forced sedentarisation of nomads and the requisitioning of livestock, killed about 1.5 million people and is thought to have taken more than a third of all Kazakhs; estimates vary (21). From the late 1930s into the 1940s, Koreans, Germans, Chechens and others were forcibly deported to Kazakhstan from across the Soviet Union (22). Part of today’s multi-ethnic composition dates from this period. From 1954 the Virgin Lands campaign converted the steppe of the north to arable land on a large scale (23).

At the Semipalatinsk test site, 456 nuclear tests were carried out between 1949 and 1989 (24). The site was closed on 29 August 1991, shortly before independence, and that date is now the United Nations’ International Day against Nuclear Tests (25). In December 1986, after Dinmukhamed Kunaev, First Secretary of the republic’s Communist Party, was dismissed and replaced by Gennady Kolbin, a Russian from outside the republic, a protest broke out in Almaty (then Alma-Ata) and was suppressed (the Zheltoqsan events) (26).

After independence, in December 1997, the capital was moved from Almaty to Akmola in the north, which was renamed Astana the following year, 1998. From 2019 to 2022 the city was called Nur-Sultan (27). The first President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, resigned in March 2019 and was succeeded by Tokayev (28). In January 2022, protests against a sudden rise in the price of liquefied petroleum gas used as motor fuel in Mangystau Region spread across the country (29) and in places turned into unrest. Troops of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) were deployed at the government’s request and had withdrawn by the 19th of that month (30). The Prosecutor General’s Office has put the death toll at 238 (31). In a referendum on 5 June that year, constitutional amendments presented as a transition from a “super-presidential” system to a presidential republic were approved by 77.18% of voters (32). The amendment establishing a single seven-year presidential term was passed by parliament in September of that year, at which time the capital’s name also reverted to Astana (33). On 6 October 2024 a referendum on whether to build a nuclear power plant was held, and 71.12% voted in favour (34). In June 2025 Russia’s Rosatom was chosen to lead the international consortium that will build the first plant (35), and the construction contract was reported to have been signed on 3 September 2026 (36). Then, in 2026, the transition to the new constitution described above took place.

As for relations with Japan, the first summit of the “Central Asia plus Japan” Dialogue was held in Tokyo on 20 December 2025, and the Tokyo Declaration was adopted (37). A report commissioned by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) cites the President’s statement that cumulative Japanese investment in Kazakhstan exceeded USD 8.5 billion in 2025 (38). The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) focuses its cooperation on economic and social infrastructure, human resource development, and environmental conservation and climate change measures (39).

The regional economy beyond the capital

Kazakhstan is divided into 17 regions and three cities of republican significance (Astana, Almaty and Shymkent) (40). In 2022, Abai Region was separated from East Kazakhstan, Zhetysu from Almaty Region, and Ulytau from Karaganda Region (41). At the start of 2026 the population of Almaty was 2.3481 million, Astana 1.6392 million and Shymkent 1.2941 million (42). In terms of gross regional product (GRP) in 2025, Almaty city accounted for 22.7% of the national total and Astana city for 12.3%. Next comes Atyrau Region (10.4%) in the oil-producing west, whose GRP per capita, at about KZT 23.33 million, is the highest in the country and about 9.3 times that of the lowest, Turkistan Region in the south (about KZT 2.51 million) (43). Beyond the capital and the former capital, many regions and cities sustain the economy through resources and heavy industry. Table 1 shows the main regions.

Table 1. Town populations and industry of the main regions

Region (main towns and population)Share of national GRPStructure of the region’s industry and notes
Atyrau (Atyrau 328,600)10.4%Mining 91.7% of industry, of which crude oil and gas extraction 88.5%. Accounts for 65% of national output value in crude oil and gas extraction and 38% in oil refining
Mangystau (Aktau 298,700; Zhanaozen 76,400)3.5%Mining 81.5% (crude oil and gas 71.8%). The port of Aktau on the Caspian is a base for the trans-Caspian transport route (6)
West Kazakhstan (Oral [Uralsk] 259,400)3.1%Mining 85.9% (crude oil and gas 82.7%). Home to the Karachaganak gas condensate field (44)
Karaganda (Karaganda 533,300; Temirtau 170,200)6.5%Manufacturing 72.4%, of which metallurgy 46.0%. About 30% of national coal output (37.27 million tonnes) (45). The steelworks at Temirtau was sold in December 2023 to an investment company with state involvement and renamed Qarmet (46)
Pavlodar (Pavlodar 336,100; Ekibastuz 127,000)4.0%Metallurgy 33.8%, electricity and heat 15.7%. 60% of national coal output (69.57 million tonnes) (45). Ekibastuz power station No. 1 alone generates 20.0% of the country’s electricity (45)
East Kazakhstan (Oskemen [Ust-Kamenogorsk] 360,700)3.7%Manufacturing 87.5%, of which non-ferrous and precious metal metallurgy 60.0%
Abai (Semey 315,300; Kurchatov 9,800)2.6%Metal ore mining 67.1% of industry, and 27% of national output value in metal ores. The National Nuclear Center is in Kurchatov, near the former test site (47)
Kostanay (Kostanay 277,100; Rudny 111,900)3.8%Motor vehicles 32.7%, metal ores 22.1%. 87% of national output value in iron ore
Kyzylorda (Kyzylorda 287,700; Baikonur 31,200)1.9%Mining 57.5% (crude oil and gas 42.0%). Under a 2004 agreement, the Baikonur cosmodrome is leased to Russia until 2050 (48)
Zhetysu (Taldykorgan 171,900)1.6%Khorgos, on the border with China, has a rail transshipment hub (dry port) that handled more than 372,000 TEU in 2025 (49)
Almaty Region (Konaev 58,100; Alatau 55,100)4.3%Food 21.9%. A special legal regime was established for the city of Alatau in 2026 (50). Ulken, on the shore of Lake Balkhash, is the site of the nuclear power plant (51)

Sources: town populations are city populations as of 1 January 2026 (42); shares of national GRP are for 2025 (43). Industrial structure and national shares are the author’s calculations from the value of industrial output in 2025 at current prices (52), not the composition of GRP. Coal output shares are from a separate source (45).

The south is populous but has low incomes per head. Turkistan Region is the most populous region, with 2.1492 million people (42), yet its GRP per capita is the lowest in the country (43). The statistics show a division of labour: heavy industry and resources in the north and east, oil and gas in the west, and services and commerce in the capital and the former capital.

Although the IT industry is concentrated in Astana and Almaty, footholds are being established in the regions as well. Astana Hub, the technology park in Astana, is extending a network of IT hubs across the regions, and in April 2024 its thirteenth regional hub opened in Aktau (53). In March 2026 a representative of Astana Hub referred to 19 regional hubs (54). In Ekibastuz, Pavlodar Region, plans are also advancing for a large data centre complex powered by coal-fired electricity; according to reports, the first 125 MW facility is due to start operating in the first half of 2027 (55).

Size and structure of the economy

According to the Bureau of National Statistics, nominal GDP in 2025 was KZT 159.6 trillion (about USD 306 billion), GDP per capita about USD 15,006, and real growth 6.5% (56). Real growth was 4.3% in 2021, 3.2% in 2022, 5.1% in 2023 and 5.0% in 2024 (57), so the 2025 figure stands out. Unemployment was 4.6% in 2025 (58). Growth has slowed somewhat in 2026; the government reports real growth of 4.2% for January–September (59). The IMF projects growth of 4.4% for 2026 (published in January 2026) (5).

By share of GDP in 2025, wholesale and retail trade accounted for 20.0%, manufacturing 12.8%, mining 11.7%, real estate 9.4%, construction 6.2%, transport and storage 6.0%, agriculture, forestry and fishing 3.8%, finance and insurance 3.4%, and information and communication 2.7% (56). The Bureau compiles an oil and gas sector that includes related trade and transport as well as extraction, and on that basis the share is 15.1%. Of this, extraction itself (the primary sector) accounts for only 7.8% (56). Any discussion of the weight of oil must therefore check which definition a figure uses.

The IMF attributes the high growth of 2025 to higher oil output, loose fiscal policy, expanding quasi-fiscal activity and a surge in consumer lending, and assesses the economy as showing signs of overheating. In particular, the expansion of the balance sheets of large state-owned enterprises has, on average over the past five years, been equivalent to about 20% of state budget expenditure. The IMF accordingly identifies reducing the state’s footprint, improving governance and the business environment, developing capital markets and diversifying trade as the pillars of structural reform (5). Under the 2021–2025 privatisation plan, 402 state assets were transferred to private ownership, and around 500 companies are slated for divestment or restructuring in 2026–2030 (5).

Trade, resources and energy

According to the Bureau of National Statistics, exports of goods in 2025 were USD 79.04 billion and imports USD 64.85 billion (preliminary) (2). In 2024 exports were USD 81.62 billion and imports USD 59.79 billion (60). Table 2 shows the commodity composition of exports.

Table 2. Composition of main exports (share of total exports)

Commodity20242025
Crude oil (including gas condensate)52.5%50.5%
Radioactive elements (uranium)5.6%5.3%
Refined copper5.1%5.2%
Copper ores and concentrates3.9%3.6%
Ferroalloys3.0%2.6%

Source: Bureau of National Statistics trade statistics (60)(2). Figures for 2025 are preliminary.

Crude oil makes up half of exports, and with uranium, copper and ferroalloys the top five commodities account for about two-thirds of the total (67.2%). The leading destinations in 2025 were Italy (19.8%), China (19.2%), Russia (10.3%) and the Netherlands (7.6%), while among sources of imports Russia (29.7%) and China (29.2%) are almost level (2). The pattern, broadly, is crude oil going mainly to Europe and manufactured goods coming mainly from Russia and China.

Production of crude oil and gas condensate in 2025 was about 99.4 million tonnes, 13.3% more than in the previous year (61). Output is centred on three giant oil and gas fields — Tengiz (39.0 million tonnes), Kashagan (18.3 million tonnes) and Karachaganak (12.13 million tonnes) — which together account for about 70% of the total (62). Of the 78.8 million tonnes of crude exported in 2025, 64.8 million tonnes (about 82%) were shipped through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline to Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea coast (62)(63). The Atyrau–Samara pipeline, which runs through Russia, carried 9.3 million tonnes, seaborne shipments from the port of Aktau 3.47 million tonnes, and the pipeline to China 1.09 million tonnes (62). Most exports thus depend on a single route. Kazakhstan participates in the OPEC+ coordinated production cuts, but in 2025, when the Tengiz expansion came on stream, output far exceeded its quota; in March it was reported to have produced 1.8 million barrels a day against a quota of 1.468 million (64). The government’s production plan for 2026 is 98 million tonnes, which takes into account a shutdown at Tengiz and the effects of attacks on CPC facilities (65).

In uranium, Kazakhstan was the largest producer in 2024, with 39% of world mine production (23,270 tonnes) (3). In electricity, thermal power (mainly coal) supplied 74.4% of generation in 2025, gas turbines 11.0%, hydropower 8.5%, wind 4.4% and solar 1.7%. Renewables under the official definition, which includes small hydropower and similar sources, accounted for 7.6% (45). A nuclear power plant is planned on the shore of Lake Balkhash, as noted above.

As for transport routes, since 2022 freight travelling from China to Europe has made increasing use of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (the Middle Corridor), which crosses the Caspian Sea by ship from Kazakhstan and continues through Azerbaijan and Georgia. According to the government, container transit on this route through Kazakhstan’s ports grew 3.8-fold between 2022 and 2025. The port of Aktau has an annual handling capacity of about 12 million tonnes, and about 22 million tonnes together with the port of Kuryk (6). At Altynkol–Khorgos, the rail junction with China, more than 16.1 million tonnes of freight were carried in 2025 (66).

Currency, monetary policy and the exchange rate

On 20 August 2015 the National Bank of Kazakhstan, together with the government, announced the move to a free float of the tenge and adopted an inflation-targeting framework. On 2 September that year it introduced a policy rate (the base rate) at 12% (4), and in October raised it to 16% while narrowing the interest rate corridor to plus or minus one percentage point (67). In July 2023 the inflation target was changed from a range to a point, set at around 5% a year over the medium term (68). The base rate is set by the Monetary Policy Committee at eight meetings a year, and the operational target is the overnight repo rate (TONIA) (69).

In recent years, in response to a renewed acceleration of inflation, the National Bank raised the base rate to 16.5% in March 2025 (70) and to 18% in October of that year (71). Consumer prices rose by 12.3% in 2025 (December on December) (72), and the rate of increase began to fall after peaking at 12.9% in September of that year (73). The National Bank cut the rate to 17% in June 2026 (73), to 16.75% in July (74) and to 16.25% on 4 September (dates are announcement dates) (75). In its September announcement the National Bank cited eleven consecutive months of declining inflation and lower inflation expectations as its reasons, while also stating that inflationary factors and risks had intensified and that room for further cuts was limited. It projects inflation of 9–11% for 2026 and a return to the 5% target in 2028 (75). Most recently, in September 2026, consumer prices were 9.3% higher than a year earlier, with food up 8.5%, non-food goods 11.0% and services 8.9% (76).

On the exchange rate regime, the IMF classifies the arrangement as “free floating” de jure and “floating” de facto. According to the IMF, the National Bank’s interventions are not systematic and are aimed solely at smoothing excessive short-term volatility (5). Since independence the tenge was devalued against the dollar by about 18% in February 2009 and again in February 2014 (77), and it fell sharply with the move to a floating rate in 2015 (67). Table 3 shows the annual average rate against the dollar.

Table 3. Annual average exchange rate of the tenge (KZT per USD)

YearRate
2016342.16
2019382.75
2022460.48
2023456.31
2024469.44
2025521.59

Sources: World Bank for 2016 (78); National Bank official rates from 2019 (79).

At the end of September 2026 the rate was KZT 440.49 to the dollar (80). Two of the National Bank’s operations affect supply and demand in the foreign exchange market. One is the sale of foreign currency accompanying transfers from the National Fund to the budget, which amounted to USD 9.48 billion in 2023, USD 10.18 billion in 2024 and USD 8.23 billion in 2025. The other is a mechanism known as “mirroring”, introduced in 2025 (81)(82). The National Bank has a pre-emptive right to buy gold produced in the country, and it offsets the tenge issued to pay for that gold by selling an equal amount of foreign currency evenly in the market over the following quarter (82). These sales came to USD 7.05 billion in 2025 (81). Both kinds of sale follow rules and their volumes are announced in advance; they are distinct from interventions to dampen exchange rate volatility. No interventions of the latter kind have taken place in 2026 through September (83)(80). Note that the National Fund’s assets are not included in the National Bank’s international reserves. Because the National Bank buys domestically produced gold, gold makes up a high share of reserves: 72% at the end of 2025 (81).

The share of foreign-currency deposits (the dollarisation ratio) fell from 21.1% at the end of 2025 (81) to a record low of 19.1% in July 2026 (84). This ratio, however, falls whenever the tenge strengthens against the dollar, even if depositors’ choices do not change. Since 2026 has been a period of tenge appreciation, how much of the decline reflects a change in currency choice needs to be checked against figures adjusted for exchange rate effects.

Public finances and the external sector

Table 4 summarises the main fiscal and external indicators.

Table 4. Main fiscal and external indicators

IndicatorValue
General government balance (2025)−4.0% of GDP (non-oil balance −8.3%)
Public debt (gross, 2025)25.2% of GDP
Current account (2025)−4.1% of GDP (−USD 12.5 billion)
National Bank international reserves (end-September 2026, preliminary)USD 66.4 billion (of which gold USD 51.4 billion)
National Fund foreign currency assets (end-September 2026)USD 66.7 billion
External debt (gross, 1 July 2026)USD 187.9 billion (56.6% of GDP)

Sources: fiscal balance and public debt are IMF estimates (5); current account from the National Bank (84); reserves and the National Fund from the National Bank (85); external debt from the National Bank (86). External debt includes intercompany borrowing.

Public debt is low, but the fiscal balance excluding oil revenue (the non-oil balance, as a share of GDP) shows a large deficit. The gap with the overall balance (4.3 percentage points of GDP) indicates the size of oil revenue. Oil revenue is first accumulated in the National Fund and returns to the budget in the form of transfers (5). The current account is in deficit despite a surplus on goods trade because the primary income balance was in deficit by more than USD 20 billion in each year from 2023 to 2025, mostly investment income paid to foreign investors (87). The IMF welcomes the new Budget Code’s caps on spending growth and on transfers from the National Fund. Under the new Tax Code, in force since January 2026, the standard rate of value added tax (VAT) was raised from 12% to 16%, and the corporate income tax rate for banks and gambling businesses was set at 25%. Progressive rates have been introduced for personal income tax (5).

Education and human capital

According to the 2021 census, 27.6% had completed tertiary education, up from 19.8% in 2009. The Bureau’s release, however, does not state the denominator of this ratio (88). In the 2025/26 academic year there were 678,100 students at 116 higher education institutions. Among entrants, 11.3% chose information and communication technologies (ICT) and 16.3% engineering, manufacturing and construction. The language of instruction was Kazakh for 65.6%, Russian for 24.8% and a foreign language for 9.6% (89).

Attainment in primary and secondary education, however, presents difficulties. In the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022, Kazakhstan scored 425 in mathematics, 386 in reading and 423 in science, all below the OECD averages (472, 476 and 485) (90). In the 2025 round, published in September 2026, the mathematics score was reported as 414, about 11 points lower than in the previous round (91).

Among measures to develop human capital is Bolashak, a state-funded overseas scholarship programme launched in 1993, which has trained more than 13,000 people to date (92). Nazarbayev University, opened in 2010, is a research university that teaches in English (93)(94). More recently, in October 2024 Astana Hub announced the opening of Tomorrow School, a free AI school with no teachers, in which learners teach one another (95).

Technology industries: IT, deep tech and fintech

Information and communication accounted for 2.7% of GDP in 2025 (56). According to the government, exports of IT services rose sharply from USD 33.5 million in 2020 to USD 1.142 billion in 2025, and the government has set a target of USD 5 billion for 2030 (96). Astana Hub reports that its participant companies exceeded 2,000 at the end of 2025 and that their exports amounted to USD 634 million (97). These figures, however, are self-reported and are defined differently from national figures.

The government has put AI at the forefront of policy. In September 2025 the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry was reorganised as the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development (98), and on 17 November that year a Law on Artificial Intelligence was enacted (99). In July 2025 a national supercomputer equipped with 496 NVIDIA H200 GPUs began operating in Astana (100)(101), and it was ranked 86th in the TOP500 list of November that year (102).

On this basis, the author’s view is that the IT industry has room to increase its weight as one of the pillars of diversification of the non-oil economy. This is a view on the size of the industry, not an outlook for any company or any asset traded in a market. It rests on the growth of IT services exports, still small though they are, on the government’s work on the legal framework and computing infrastructure, and on the fact that just over one in ten university entrants choose ICT. There is, however, evidence the other way. IT services exports remain at around 0.4% of GDP; as the PISA results show, basic attainment is below the international average and has recently fallen; and just over 70% of domestic electricity generation is thermal, mainly coal (45), a constraint that also applies to the power supply for computing infrastructure. Moreover, part of the growth in exports may reflect a widening of statistical coverage or an increase in registrations under preferential regimes. Whether the talent base can be deepened, and how the constraints on electricity are dealt with, are the conditions on which this view depends.

In fintech, the central bank digital currency, the Digital Tenge, has been in pilot operation since 2023, and its use for government payments, such as National Fund disbursements and the execution of road repair budgets, is being tested. Amendments to the banking legislation in January 2026 defined the Digital Tenge as one form of the national currency (103). On crypto-assets, a Law on Digital Assets was enacted in February 2023, bringing crypto-asset mining under regulation (104). Under amendments signed on 17 November 2025, the circulation of unbacked crypto-assets, previously confined to the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), was brought under regulation nationwide (105). According to reports, licensed exchanges may operate anywhere in the country (106).

Financial and capital markets

Finance in Kazakhstan is bank-based. On 1 April 2026 there were 23 banks, with total assets equal to 44.2% of GDP; the five largest held 69.2% of assets (107).

There are two stock exchanges. Equity market capitalisation on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) was KZT 39.0 trillion at the end of 2025 (108) and KZT 47.6 trillion at the end of June 2026 (109). As a rough comparison of values from different dates, the end-2025 figure is equivalent to about 24% of that year’s nominal GDP. At the end of October 2025, 88 equity issues of 75 companies were listed (110), and trading cannot be described as active. The largest shareholder in KASE is the National Bank (47.00%) (111). The Moscow Exchange held 13.1% as of June 2024 (112), but following US sanctions imposed that month it ceased to be a shareholder in October that year (113).

The other is the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), which formally opened on 5 July 2018, the twentieth anniversary of the move of the capital, and its exchange, the Astana International Exchange (AIX). At its launch the Shanghai Stock Exchange took a 25.1% stake in AIX (114). The AIFC has its own legal system based on English common law (38). At the end of June 2026, 398 securities of 196 issuers were listed on AIX (115).

Offerings of shares in state-owned enterprises have also played some part in building the market. Under the “People’s IPO” programme launched in 2011, shares in the oil pipeline company KazTransOil were offered domestically in 2012 and in the power transmission company KEGOC in 2014. In November 2018 shares in the state uranium company Kazatomprom were listed simultaneously on the London Stock Exchange and AIX (116). Even so, according to the World Bank’s financial sector assessment, equity market capitalisation in 2021 was 19.1% of GDP, comparable to the average for the region’s frontier markets (23.8%), but turnover, at 5.1%, was well below the average (7.9%) (7). As noted at the outset, the same assessment identifies the thin investor base and the concentration of issuers in the government and quasi-government sectors as problems (7).

Sources of statistics and caveats

Table 5 sets out where the main statistics and documents used in this series can be found.

Table 5. Main statistics and where to find them

SubjectPublisherFrequency and notes
Prices, GDP, trade, employment, population, regionsBureau of National Statistics, Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms (stat.gov.kz)Consumer prices monthly (early the following month); GDP quarterly. GRP and industrial output by region annually. English-language publications are limited; details are in Russian and Kazakh
Monetary policy, the exchange rate, reserves, balance of paymentsNational Bank (nationalbank.kz)Eight base rate decisions a year. Announcement dates and effective dates differ (117). Foreign exchange operations published monthly
BanksAgency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (ARDFM)Quarterly reports on the state of the banking sector
ExchangesKASE (kase.kz), AIX (AIFC)Market capitalisation and number of listed securities monthly and quarterly
Overall assessmentsIMF (Article IV consultations), World Bank (financial sector assessment, economic outlooks)Selected indicators tables combine revised past values with projections
Day-to-day newsKapital.kz, Interfax-Kazakhstan, Kazinform and other outlets; in Japanese, JETRO’s business news briefsCheck figures in reports of Bureau of National Statistics or National Bank releases against the originals

This article draws on documents published in Russian and English and on reporting of them; it does not cover material published only in Kazakh.

At least four caveats apply when reading these figures. First, the weight of the oil and gas sector varies greatly with the definition: 15.1% of GDP on the Bureau’s broad definition, but 7.8% for extraction alone. Second, there are two measures of town population — the population of the city proper, and that of the city administration including surrounding settlements — and in places such as Atyrau and Oral the difference is large. This article uses the former. Third, indicators with the same name, such as IT exports, can differ widely between balance-of-payments statistics and the self-reported figures of individual organisations. Fourth, figures are revised; in particular, the 2025 trade figures are preliminary. Every figure cited in this series carries an access date and will be updated as revisions are made.

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