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Central Asia

Kazakhstan

336 stories
Drip-irrigation lines running down rows of young crop in dry soil at dawn, a slate-blue header pipe with one amber valve in the foreground.
China FactorBrief27 Oct

Kazakhstan proposes an SCO platform for water-saving farming at the Yangling fair

Kazakhstan’s vice-minister of agriculture, Nazgul Khatepova, proposed a regional platform for exchanging water-saving farming practice among the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s members at an SCO round table during the Yangling agricultural fair in Shaanxi. Her pitch was Kazakhstan’s own numbers: water-saving technology on 702,300 hectares, about 44 percent of irrigated land, and 874 million cubic metres of water saved in 2025.

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  1. A grain hopper wagon unloading wheat at a mill siding at dawn, a single amber lamp on the gantry above.
    EconomyBrief27 Oct

    Kazakhstan’s trade with Tajikistan passes $1 billion in eight months on wheat and fuel gas

    Trade between Kazakhstan and Tajikistan exceeded $1 billion in January to August, 34 percent more than a year earlier, Kazakhstan’s ambassador in Dushanbe, Valikhan Turekhanov, said at a Republic Day reception on Monday. Asia-Plus puts the nine-month figure at about $1.13 billion, with wheat, liquefied petroleum gases, steel rebar and alumina the largest lines from Kazakhstan and zinc concentrate the largest the other way.

  2. A line chart of the National Bank of Kazakhstan's official tenge rate for every day of October 2026, from 440.86 on 1 October to 451.05 on 27 October, with the rate decision of 23 October marked in amber.
    EconomyBrief27 Oct

    Tenge at 451.05 per dollar, 2.3 percent weaker than on 1 October

    The National Bank of Kazakhstan’s official rate for 27 October is 451.05 tenge to the dollar, the fixing set from Friday’s trading, since Monday was a day off in Kazakhstan. Since 1 October the tenge has given up 10.19 tenge, or 2.3 percent by CAW’s arithmetic. Against 20 October, the Monday of the rate decision week, it stands 1.54 tenge stronger.

  3. Two railway tracks cross a sand-coloured quay and end at a raised ferry ramp above slate blue sea water, an amber signal lamp beside the ramp.
    PoliticsBrief26 Oct

    Central Asia’s five foreign ministers meet Georgia’s in Batumi for the first time

    The foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan met Maka Botchorishvili in Batumi on Friday in the first meeting of this format, and visited the port with the head of Georgia’s Maritime Transport Agency. The Middle Corridor, digital freight documents and port and rail capacity filled the agenda. Botchorishvili called closer ties with Central Asia a key foreign policy priority for Georgia.

  4. A heavy slate blue steel cask with a bolted lid stands on a pallet in an empty warehouse bay, an amber seal tag hanging from one bolt.
    EnergyBrief26 Oct

    Kazatomprom calls a second shareholder vote on supplying uranium to Rosatom’s Uranium One

    Kazatomprom’s board will put the natural uranium supply contract with Uranium One, a Rosatom subsidiary, to shareholders again after a first vote went against it, with absentee voting from 25 November to 9 December. In Tashkent, Rosatom’s director general Alexei Likhachev said the company fears no competition for Uzbekistan’s next reactors and will offer its services.

  5. A cropped view from below of substation bus bars on tall insulators against a sand-coloured sky, one insulator cap in amber.
    EconomyBrief26 Oct

    Jensen Huang proposes Kazakhstan as a hub of physical AI and receives the Order of Dostyk

    Nvidia’s co-founder and president told President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana on Friday that Kazakhstan has the energy and the people to become a hub of what he called physical AI. He named Firebird AI, Kazakhtelecom and Higgsfield as the company’s partners in the country. Tokayev awarded him the Order of Dostyk, first class, for his contribution to artificial intelligence in Kazakhstan.

  6. A step chart of Kazakhstan’s base rate through 2026, falling from 17 percent in June to 15.75 percent on 23 October, the last step marked in amber.
    EconomyAnalysis26 Oct

    Kazakhstan cuts its base rate to 15.75 percent and calls another change this year unlikely

    The National Bank of Kazakhstan cut its base rate to 15.75 percent on Friday and wrote that another change before the end of 2026 is unlikely, with the risks it lists all on the upside. Annual inflation stood at 9.3 percent in September, slowing for a twelfth month. The tenge weakened by 3.11 tenge to 451.05 per dollar on the day of the decision.

  7. A row of wind turbines on flat steppe at dawn with an amber survey flag on a stake in the foreground.
    EconomyBrief23 Oct

    Bektenov lists 22 documents for $4.8 billion at KGIR, two memoranda at $1 billion each

    Twenty-two documents worth $4.8 billion were signed on the sidelines of the ninth Kazakhstan Global Investment Roundtable in Shymkent on 22 October, the prime minister’s office said: three investment agreements led by a $730 million wind farm in Kostanay region, and memoranda including $1 billion for a Kuryk port terminal with China’s Guoyou Materials Group and $1 billion for 20 inclusive schools.

  8. An offshore platform in silhouette on calm water at dawn, with one amber navigation light on its rail.
    EnergyBrief23 Oct

    Turkmennebit and CNOOC sign on Caspian blocks among five OGT documents with no sums

    After the second day of Oil and Gas of Turkmenistan 2026 on 22 October the state concerns signed five documents: a Turkmennebit memorandum with CNOOC on blocks in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian, a services memorandum with Malaysia’s MPRC and three pipe-supply contracts with plants in Tashkent, Tianjin and Kazakhstan, News Central Asia reported. No values were published.

  9. Two stacks of bound case files, the taller one strapped shut and pushed aside, the shorter one open with an amber bookmark.
    EnergyAnalysis23 Oct

    Kashagan tribunal rejects $12 billion of Kazakh claims as time-barred, Bloomberg reports

    An international arbitration tribunal has rejected about $12 billion of Kazakhstan’s claims against the Kashagan consortium’s shareholders over disputed development costs of 2011 to 2015, ruling that the government filed too late, and allowed about $8 billion of other claims to proceed, Bloomberg reported on 22 October citing people familiar with the matter. The process continues, and Astana still seeks more than $150 billion.

  10. A brass toggle switch flipped on beside a dark bulb, lit only by a small amber pilot lamp on a slate-blue wall.
    PoliticsAnalysis23 Oct

    US order on buyers of Russian oil and gas waives every duty and names no country

    Executive Order 14436 reached the Federal Register on 21 October: four pages that set the Graham act’s duties and waive them, with its bank and secondary sanctions, in one text. The 100% duty on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas is tied to new purchases from 18 October, the five are unnamed, and the waivers run until the President or the Secretary of State decide otherwise.

  11. A construction site in open steppe at dawn with fresh foundations, surveyors’ stakes, one tower crane and an amber ribbon on the nearest stake.
    China FactorBrief22 Oct

    Tokayev launches a $1.8 billion KAZ Minerals copper smelter at Aktogay with China’s NFC

    Kassym-Jomart Tokayev started construction of a copper smelter at Aktogay in Abai region by video link on 20 October, Akorda reported. KAZ Minerals is the investor, China’s NFC the engineering partner, the investment about $1.8 billion, the jobs more than 1,000, and the first copper cathode is planned for 2030. The plant will also produce gold, silver and by-products.

  12. A sand-coloured parade square divided by a fresh white line, one half scuffed with boot marks and the other untouched, with a small amber cone at the line’s end.
    SecurityAnalysis22 Oct

    Kazakhstan’s Security Council approves a military reform that splits conscription in two

    On 21 October Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s Security Council approved a military reform plan that moves conscripts to six months in training centres followed by six months in units, creates Drone Forces and a Commissioner for Servicemen, and sets the organisational steps for this year and what it calls the main conceptual measures for 2027. The plan’s text, troop numbers and budget are not published.

  13. An empty plenary hall after a sitting, with curved rows of desks and microphones, papers on the rostrum and one amber desk lamp still lit.
    Turkish FactorBrief21 Oct

    TurkPA closes its 15th plenary in Bishkek with a declaration and the next session in Türkiye

    The Bishkek Declaration ended the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States’ 15th plenary on Tuesday, the assembly’s site reported, after the speakers of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Türkiye, the Turkish Cypriot speaker as an observer and Uzbekistan’s Senate chair Tanzila Narbayeva as a guest had spoken. On the agenda were four model laws, the 2027 budget and the election of two deputy secretaries general.

  14. Tall refinery distillation columns and dense pipework in silhouette against a dusk sky, with a small amber flare at the top of one stack.
    EconomyBrief21 Oct

    KazMunayGas’s Romanian arm tripled its nine-month profit to $269 million at 97% refinery load

    KMG International earned $269 million in January-September, 219% more than a year earlier, on EBITDA of $469 million, up 73%, the national company said in Kapital’s report on Tuesday. Petromidia processed 4.087 million tonnes of crude, 14,670 tonnes a day, and the group’s retail companies sold 2.272 million tonnes of fuel.

  15. Four folded documents in a row, each bound with a slate-blue wax seal, with a lump of amber sealing wax and a brass stamp beside them.
    PoliticsBrief21 Oct

    SCO governments sign four documents in Dushanbe and hand the council’s chair to Uzbekistan

    The 25th Council of Heads of Government signed a joint communiqué, a 2026-2030 trade and economic action plan, a digital freight platform concept and a decision on the regulation of a data bank of investment projects in industry on Tuesday, by the Russian government’s list. Russia’s deputy prime minister Alexei Overchuk said the meeting was “to a greater degree” about a new SCO bank, on whose shares it is “still too early to speak”.

  16. A sealed white sample-transport box alone on a long empty laboratory bench, a shaft of daylight from a high window stopping short of it, with one amber latch.
    EconomyAnalysis21 Oct

    Turkistan’s new virology laboratory promises faster tests and publishes no turnaround time

    Kazakhstan opened a virology laboratory in Turkistan on 10 September under a $58.2 million pandemic-preparedness project, $19.2 million of it a Pandemic Fund grant, for a region that used to send its samples elsewhere. Every speech promised faster diagnosis. No public document sets the time from sample to result, before or after: not the order on especially dangerous infections, not the laboratory standard of 2020, none of the releases.

  17. A thick mooring rope pulled taut between two iron bollards on a quay, its fibres splitting at one point with a single amber strand showing.
    PoliticsAnalysis21 Oct

    Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan sign an EAEU appeal that prices a suspension of Armenia

    The heads of government of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan sent the Eurasian Economic Commission on Tuesday a report on what suspending the union treaty for Armenia would cost: gas assumed at $300 instead of $177.50 a thousand cubic metres, trade with the union cut by 55.6%, remittances from Russia halved. Their appeal goes to four presidents and Armenia’s prime minister, two months before the presidents’ December date.

  18. An open navy velvet case with an empty gavel-shaped recess and brass clasps on a sandstone surface.
    PoliticsBrief20 Oct

    Kyrgyzstan takes the TurkPA chair from Kazakhstan with a mallet and a list of priorities

    Aibek Dadebai, chairman of Kazakhstan’s Kurultai, handed the symbolic mallet of the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States to Jogorku Kenesh speaker Marlen Mamataliev in Bishkek on Tuesday. The assembly’s 15th plenary session runs there on 19 and 20 October with the speakers of Azerbaijan and Turkey in the hall.

  19. A cutaway of a tall gas-processing column with trays, joined to a pipe that carries only a thin amber stream along its floor.
    EnergyBrief20 Oct

    Kazakhstan’s marketed gas fell to 0.5 billion cubic metres in September, a low since 2011

    The national statistics bureau’s September figure is 4.3 times below August and 3.3 times below September 2025, by DATA HUB’s reading as inbusiness carried it. West Kazakhstan, home of Karachaganak, produced 370 million cubic metres while the field was under its planned repair.