Central Asia has emerged as a key region where the convergence of geopolitics and development cooperation is most visible. Major powers are redefining their approaches: Japan combines official development assistance (ODA) with commercial partnerships to advance connectivity and reform; the EU is...

In August 2024, the IMF's CCAMTAC conducted a scoping mission at the request of the National Bank of Kazakhstan to enhance the forecasting capabilities of the Monetary Analysis Division. The mission evaluated the Division's current resources, tools, and data management practices, identifying...

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) remain a cornerstone of Kazakhstan’s economy and growth model. However, SOEs’ quasi-fiscal activities conducted outside the fiscal framework obscure the overall fiscal stance, complicating macroeconomic management. This paper finds that the balance sheet...

Kazakhstan’s economy is showing clear signs of overheating. After growing by around 5 percent in 2023 and 2024, the economy is expected to expand by 6.2 percent in 2025, fueled by rising oil production, a loose fiscal stance, expanding quasi-fiscal activities, and rapid consumer lending....

An IMF mission visited both Astana and Almaty during May - June 2024. This mission was a second engagement with the National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) and National Payments Corporation of Kazakhstan (NPCK) following a virtual engagement during February - March 2024. Both phases sought to support...

An IMF mission visited both Astana and Almaty during May - June 2024. This mission was a second engagement with the National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) and National Payments Corporation of Kazakhstan (NPCK) following a virtual engagement during February - March 2024. Both phases sought to support...

This paper evaluates the employment and sales effects of two widely used financial support instruments for small and medium-sized enterprises, interest rate subsidies and credit guarantees, using administrative program data from Kazakhstan matched to the universe of firms. Utilizing staggered...

This study investigates how financial growth connects to regional environmental performance within the framework of policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions. It uses a comprehensive panel dataset covering the period from 2010 to 2024. Although Kazakhstan has set ambitious targets, significant...

This study examines the asymmetric responses of stock market indices in Türkiye and Kazakhstan to oil price shocks during the 2010-2025 period. Using the Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) model, the study decomposes the nonlinear effects of oil price fluctuations on financial...

This paper examines the combination of traditional banking credit assessment techniques with contemporary internal sales accounting systems in Kazakhstan, aiming to augment the precision and resilience of financial assessments pertaining to SMEs. The proposed model consists of two discrete...

The manuscript aims to assess the scale of shadow economic processes within the non-observed economy, focusing on the self-employment sector, which is insufficiently reflected in national statistics. The research methodology includes an analysis of the conceptual foundations of the shadow...

The rising demand for meat and animal products has strained land resources and created a livestock sector responsible for 20% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, linked to desertification, deforestation, water contamination, and biodiversity loss. Quantifying this strain remains difficult...

As part of its efforts to secure access to critical raw materials (CRMs), the EU has concluded Strategic Partnerships on Raw Materials with 14 non-EU countries. These partnerships aim to diversify supply sources and to deepen ties with resource-rich countries, thereby strengthening the...

Kazakhstan is a major emitter of greenhouse gases and also highly vulnerable to climate change. This highlights the urgent need for coordinated efforts in climate mitigation and adaptation. In 2022, Kazakhstan's emissions reached 353.0 million tons of CO2 equivalent, with per capita emissions...

The Country Opinion Survey in Kazakhstan assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in better understanding how stakeholders in Kazakhstan perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia, the private...

The mutual codependence between stock market development and the economic growth is empirically investigated in Kazakhstan. The study employs the Vector Autoregression technique (VAR) to test the relationship between economic growth (Industrial Production Index) and the stock market development...

As part of its efforts to secure access to critical raw materials (CRMs), the EU has concluded Strategic Partnerships on Raw Materials with 14 non-EU countries. These partnerships aim to diversify supply sources and to deepen ties with resource-rich countries, thereby strengthening the...

A technical assistance mission assisted the Bureau of National Statistics under the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms of the Republic of Kazakhstan in developing quarterly national accounts. It did so by reviewing existing large statistical discrepancies between GDP by production and GDP...

Almaty Agglomeration is a large territory in Central Asia, located in a region with a sharply continental climate characterized by cold winters and dry summers. The area includes diverse ecological zones ranging from deserts to mountain meadows and forests, creating varied microclimates and...

This paper explores how the health-related component of human capital affects economic performance in all five Central Asian countries. In particular, it analyzes the impact of life expectancy on overall GDP and output per worker, which characterizes labor productivity. The time frame includes...

Unequal access to healthcare and inadequate financing have highlighted the need for healthcare reform to increase efficiency while ensuring equity in healthcare financing worldwide. Our study evaluates the capacity of Kazakhstan’s healthcare system reform, transitioning from a tax-financed...