For the first time Kazakhstan celebrates the day of Abai.

The new holiday was approved only recently. Kazakhstanis do not rest on this day. Now, Abai Day in Kazakhstan will be marked on August 10 every year. It was on this day in 1845 that the great poet of the Kazakh...

The census of the population of Kazakhstan has been postponed for a year due to the pandemic and will be held in October 2021, the press service of the Ministry of National Economy reported. "According to the decree of the Government of Kazakhstan of June 19, 2019, N419 On the...

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev received Defence Minister, Nurlan Ermekbayev. The President, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, heard the report of the Defence Minister on the course of combat and operational training of the armed forces, directions of the Kazakh army development.

Nurlan Yermekbayev briefed Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on the work of...

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev received the NWF Samruk-Kazyna JSC board chairman, Akhmetzhan Yessimov. The President was briefed on Samruk-Kazyna actions in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Akhmetzhan Yesimov told Kassym-Jomart Tokayev that in March of this year the Fund had financed the purchase of 6 million protective masks for doctors, police...

In Kazakhstan, 46 people died from coronavirus and pneumonia on Saturday,. According to the Health Ministry, at the moment, 25,002 people continue to receive treatment for coronavirus infection, including 114 children. There are 5,039 patients in hospitals, 19,963 at the outpatient treatment.

130 people are in serious condition, 27 - extreme...

1,011 cases of and 15 deaths from pneumonia flagged as pneumonia with coronavirus-like symptoms have been reported in the last 24 hours in Kazakhstan,

Thus, pneumonia with symptoms similar to COVID-19 has affected 13,121 people and killed 152 in the country since August 1.

The Health Ministry publishes daily updates on the...

On August 7, in Ankara, a Kazakh delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Yeraly Tugzhanov held a meeting with the Minister of Health of the Republic of Turkey Fahrettin Koca.

At the instruction of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the delegation of...

The value of funds sent abroad through international money transfer systems in June 2020 amounted to a record 92.8 billion tenge. This is 22.1 billion tenge higher than the last record figure reached in May of this year.

In quarantine April, the value of transfers abroad amounted to only 22.5 billion...

As of July 24 of the current year, the exchange rate of the tenge against the US dollar amounted to 414.2 tenge. In March of this year, against the background of a collapse in oil prices, the exchange rate of the national currency of Kazakhstan dropped to a maximum of...

Prime Minister Askar Mamin chaired a meeting of the Project Office on Entrepreneurship. The interim results of the implementation of the Economy of Simple Things program of concessional lending, the issues of local content in public procurement, procurement of Samruk-Kazyna and subsoil users, as well as the results of a...

The Samruk-Kazyna Kazakhstan National Welfare Fund will pay the government of the country 120 billion tenge of dividends by the end of this year. This was reported on Friday by the press service of the country's president following his meeting with the chairman of the NWF board, Akhmetzhan Yesimov.

“During the...

Prime Minister Askar Mamin held a meeting of the Project Office on entrepreneurship. The meeting examined the interim results of the concessional lending program "Economy of Simple Things", issues of local content in public procurement, procurement of NWF Samruk-Kazyna JSC and subsoil users, as well as the survey results of...

The BTA Bank, that was the leading bank of Kazakhstan in the 90s and early 2000s had been busted by the epic scale banking fraud and embezzlement case. It went bankrupt in 2009 and was bailed out by the state. Mukhtar Ablyazov, the owner of the bank and the mastermind...

As a result of trades in shares on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange on Friday, the value of the KASE index decreased by 0.34% from 2,448.7 to 2,440.47.

The value of deals in shares, included to the KASE index representative list, decreased against the previous trading day by 28.3% and amounted to...

The National Bank told how seasonal and traditional factors affect the exchange rate of the national currency. Ivan Serdyuk, the Deputy Director of the monetary operations department of the main bank, noted that oil prices have shown a slight increase since the beginning of August. This is due to data...

The U.S. dollar bounced on Friday after U.S. job growth for July helped ease some investor worries on the U.S. labor market, but the currency logged a seventh straight week of declines. The U.S. Labor Department’s report showed nonfarm payrolls increased by 1.76 million in July. While that was more...

World stocks ended four days of gains on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump cranked up antagonism with Beijing by banning U.S. transactions with two popular Chinese apps: Tencent's WeChat and ByteDance's TikTok.

With second quarter GDP data showing double digit percentage declines for major economies that may be the worst...

Kazakhstani KazMunayGas refineries reduced the processing of raw materials by 9.7%, to 6.02 million tonnes. The company's Romanian refineries reduced refining by 31.8%, to 2.27 million tonnes in 6 months of 2020, KMG reported. The total volume of raw materials processing at KazMunayGas plants decreased by 17.1% to 8.29 million...

KazMunayGas National Company announced production results for the first half of 2020. The indicators are impressive, to put it mildly. Oil production from two fields increased at once, despite the pandemic, the halt of drilling operations and the OPEC+ agreement to cut production. Only at Kashagan, production grew by 42.5%....

Oil prices fell nearly 2% on Friday, limiting their weekly gain due to concerns the global recovery could falter from a resurgence of coronavirus cases. The rise in infections remains the dominant issue for the fuel demand outlook. Cases in the United States are still rising in a number of...

Prompt British wholesale gas prices rose on Friday as an outage in Norway led to lower exports from that country while warm weather was expected to boost demand for power for cooling.

The day-ahead contract was up 0.98 pence at 19.23 p/therm by 0915 GMT.

The weekend contract was up 0.50 p...

Glencore has no plans to spin off its gold business but remains open to selling gold-producing Kazzinc, like any other asset, at the right price, the chief executive said.

Gold prices are trading at record highs of above $2,050 an ounce, spurring on merger and acquisitions in the industry. Glencore produces...

According to the World Gold Council, the volume of the precious metal as of August 1, 2020 in the country's international reserves reached 65.5%. In total, they amounted to 378.5 tonnes. Over the year, the reserves increased by 3.2 tonnes.

Kazakhstan still ranks 14th, excluding the IMF and ECB, and is...

The only integrated titanium producer in Kazakhstan, UK TMC, ended last year with a significant increase in profit. The total income of the company increased by 40%.

According to data from the consolidated financial statements, published on the kase.kz website, the company's assets for 2019 exceeded 127.7 billion tenge. During the reporting period,...

The Swiss company Glencore is open for sale of the metallurgical company Kazzinc. Glencore CEO Ivan Glazenberg told Reuters about it.

The company does not plan to develop its gold mining business and remains open for the sale of its stake in Kazzinc at the right price, like any other asset.

Gold...

In Kazakhstan, the right to subsoil use for hydrocarbons will be provided through electronic auctions. This became possible thanks to the amendments to the Code on Subsoil and Subsoil Use, which make it possible to conduct auctions in electronic format.

"In order to implement the Law of Kazakhstan dated December 30,...

Gold slumped over 2% on Friday, snapping its record-breaking rally, after a decent U.S. jobs report boosted the dollar, but a worsening pandemic kept prices on course for their longest streak of weekly gains in about a decade. Spot gold fell 1.4% to $2,033.89 per ounce by 2:46 p.m. EDT...

Copper prices slipped on Friday as a stronger dollar triggered profit-taking on long positions, but expectations of stronger growth and demand around the world limited losses.

Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange traded down 0.8% at $6,428.5 a tonne in official rings. Prices of the metal used in the power...

The transition of construction companies to domestically produced materials will support enterprises and create new jobs. This was reported by the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development.

The department explained that an increase in the share of local content in the construction of buildings to 90% will increase the capacity utilisation...

Kazakh packers complain about the possible introduction of a 6.5% duty on the import of polymer raw materials for their products. The Association of Packers of Kazakhstan noted that the introduction of the duty would have negative consequences for the market. At the moment, polymer raw materials are freely imported...

In January-June 2020, the gross output in the livestock sector of Kazakhstan reached 1.2 trillion tenge, which is 11.5% more than a year earlier. Real growth adjusted for inflation amounted to 2.5%.

In January-December last year, the value of output in the sector amounted to 2.3 trillion tenge, with a real...

In January-June 2020, Kazakh enterprises produced 1.7 million tonnes of flour from grain and vegetable crops. Over the past 28 years, the smallest volume of flour was produced in 1999 at 1.2 million tonnes. After that, the figure rose to 4 million tonnes in 2012, falling to 3.7 million tonnes...

Recently, one of the most successful manufacturers of agricultural machinery in Europe, the PÖTTINGER company, concluded a Cooperation Agreement with the largest domestic agricultural machine-building enterprise AgromashHolding KZ.

This is another large world engineering company that is establishing work in Kazakhstan. In 2019, the Kirovets plant was launched in Kostanay, now...

6,630 hectares of rice were under threat. According to the data of the regional department of agriculture, the farmers of the region were warned in advance about the forthcoming lack of water. They were advised to reduce the sown area. But still, this sowing of rice has increased by almost...

U.S. wheat futures edged higher on Friday as a weaker dollar boosted export prospects, though the grain was poised to record its biggest weekly loss in more than a year due to ample global supplies.

The most active wheat futures on the Chicago Board Of Trade down more than 5% for...

To collect, systematise and solve business problems, since 2014, Atameken NCE has been implementing a unique project, Register of problems of entrepreneurs. This is a platform where every entrepreneur can post a message about the difficulties encountered in their business practice. Also, the register records the proposals of regional chambers...

Income losses of the Khorgos International Centre for Cross-Border Cooperation in the first half of 2020 amounted to about 1.5 billion tenge excluding VAT. This was reported in the management company of the Khorgos ICBC.

The centre should be considered as a complex consisting of the Kazakh and Chinese parts, connected...

The pandemic and quarantine measures in Kazakhstan did not affect revenues from the transportation of goods by road, despite a decrease in total traffic volumes, which are associated with a decrease in business activity and a reduction in the geography of cargo supplies. According to the Ministry of Industry and...

In order to support distance education, the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry of Kazakhstan, together with cellular operators, worked out the issue of launching a special tariff plan, Bilim, which can be used by teachers, pupils and students. The tariff plan includes unlimited access to 380 domestic...

Housing has risen in price in Kazakhstan. For a month - July 2020 to June 2020 - resale prices of comfortable housing increased by 1.1%, new sales - by 0.2%. The rent for comfortable housing increased by 0.4%, according  to the Statistics Committee of the Ministry of National Economy of...

Russia’s airport traffic exceeded expectations in July. Passenger traffic dropped by only 45% compared to the same month last year, while forecasts had warned of a 65% plunge, according to the International Association of Airports. Tourists have reacted to the lifting of coronavirus restrictions, said experts.

Data from airports confirms overall...

Fitch Ratings has affirmed Russia's Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'BBB' with a stable outlook, the internaiotnal ratings agency said in a statement on Friday.

"Russia's 'BBB' IDRs balance its credible and consistent policy framework, and robust public and external balance sheets, underpinned by a solid sovereign net foreign...

The Russian rouble weakened on Friday, heading towards a three-month low amid pressure from global risk aversion fuelled by Sino-U.S. tensions.

At 0754 GMT, the rouble was 0.5% weaker against the dollar at 73.61, moving closer to its weakest level since early May of 74.68, which it hit on Monday.

Against the...

The value of trade between China and Russia decreased from January to July 2020 by 4.3% year-on-year and amounted to 58.83 bln, according to a report published on Friday by the General Administration of Customs of China.

According to the published data, China's exports to Russia fell by 3.7% to $25.83...

China stocks ended lower on Friday after the Trump administration unveiled a plan to ban U.S. transactions with ByteDance’s TikTok and Tencent-owned WeChat, but posted weekly gains on upbeat trade data.

The blue-chip CSI300 index dropped as much as 2.6% before ending 1.2% lower at 4,707.93, while the Shanghai Composite Index...

Data from China’s General Administration of Customs showed on Friday the country’s dollar-denominated exports rose 7.2 percent last month, well ahead of analysts’ expectations. Imports fell 1.4 percent from a year ago.

The export growth was powered by rising overseas demand for electronics, medical supplies and other goods used in coronavirus...

China will accelerate the establishment of a "dual circulation" development pattern that takes the domestic market as the mainstay while domestic and foreign markets can boost each other.

Since May this year, the top leadership of the country has reaffirmed the dual-circulation development pattern on various occasions, indicating the strategic priority...

Date: August 10, 2020; Source: Bloomberg.com

Energy

Precious and Industrial Metals

Agriculture

Date: August 10, 2020; Source: the National Bank of Kazakhstan