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Kazakhstan’s Kurultai ratifies a framework with the AIIB for about $6 billion of concessional money over 5 years, at 1 to 1.5% a year, for 3 roads and a railway

The Kurultai adopted in 2 readings on Wednesday the law ratifying Kazakhstan’s framework partnership agreement with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, signed in February during the visit of the bank’s president Zou Jiayi, Kazinform and Zakon.kz reported. Deputy prime minister and national economy minister Serik Zhumangarin told the deputies the agreement lets the government draw “long money” on concessional terms of about $6 billion in the first 5 years after ratification, at 1 to 1.5% a year, for 17 projects worth $5.3 billion in transport, energy, health and green finance: the Zhezkazgan-Karaganda, Aktobe-Karabutak-Ulgaisyn and Atyrau-Dossor roads and the Moyynty-Kyzylzhar railway among them.

By CAW Staff24 September 2026
Bar chart comparing the AIIB's 1.8 billion dollar portfolio in Kazakhstan with a 6 billion dollar five-year framework ceiling, an amber segment marking 5.3 billion of named projects, with four small route maps below.

The rate is the news in the sum. At 1 to 1.5% a year the money is cheaper than the state’s tenge borrowing by an order of magnitude, which is what “long money on concessional terms” means in a minister’s mouth; the price of it is that the projects are the bank’s to appraise. The $6 billion is a ceiling for 5 years, drawn project by project.

Kazakhstan is a founding member of the bank, and its portfolio there to date is 7 projects worth $1.8 billion since the bank opened in 2016, Kazinform’s account of the sitting says; the framework triples that in 5 years if the pipeline fills. The 4 named routes are freight routes: 3 roads, in the centre, the west and the oil region, and a railway section, Moyynty to Kyzylzhar, in the centre.

The rate is the news in the sum.

Its president had signed during her February visit; the parliament that ratified is the one seated under the new constitution. A third bank at the table this week, after the ADB and the EBRD with their forecasts of the last 2 days, is the one with the Chinese address.

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