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Energy

Three governments spend 3 days in Almaty on the Kambar-Ata-1 agreement: the World Bank watches and the only sum on the table is Kazakhstan’s plan to borrow $500 million for its third of the dam

Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan held the third round of talks on the intergovernmental agreement on Kambar-Ata-1 in Almaty from 21 to 23 September, the Kyrgyz energy ministry said on Thursday through Economist.kg: deputy energy minister Salaat Sadyrakunov for Bishkek, first vice-minister of water resources and irrigation Nurlan Aldamzharov for Astana, first deputy energy minister Umid Mamadaminov for Tashkent, with the World Bank’s representatives in the room as observers. That document is to define the joint construction and management of the plant, the approach to financing it and the coordination between the 3 states, and the sum in the room is Kazakhstan’s plan, first reported by Economist.kg in March, to borrow about $500 million from the bank’s structures for the construction.

By CAW Staff24 September 2026
Three taut hemp ropes from three directions knotted to a single iron ring bolted into a pale concrete wall, lit from the side in amber.

The plant is a 1,860 MW station on the Naryn: about 6 billion kWh a year, a 261-metre dam and a reservoir of 5.2 billion cubic metres, on the World Bank’s own page for the project, which puts the ownership at 34% for Kyrgyzstan and 33% each for Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and lists the bank’s preparation money at $5 million in 2023 and $13.6 million in 2024, with a multiphase programme of up to $1.5 billion of concessional financing being prepared. Its rounds ran in Bishkek from 31 March to 2 April, in Tashkent from 28 to 30 April and now in Almaty; the bank’s page expected the agreement signed and ratified over 2025 and 2026. Three ministries wrote for 3 days on one dam, and the document still carries no date.

Astana’s delegation came from the water ministry and Bishkek’s and Tashkent’s from the energy ministries, which is the project’s argument in one seating plan: the dam is winter power upstream and summer water downstream. Caravan.kz carried the energy ministry’s account on Wednesday, with Aldamzharov leading and Zhalgas Shogelbayev of the state energy supervision committee beside him.

Three ministries wrote for 3 days on one dam, and the document still carries no date.

The $500 million is a March plan, reported by Economist.kg on 4 March, and it is borrowed money: Kazakhstan’s third of a Kyrgyz dam, financed by a bank whose people sat as observers while the 3 capitals wrote the rules of the company they will own together. The ministry’s account names no venue for the next round.

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