According to the First Vice-Minister of Agriculture Arman Yevniyev, there are about 272 million hectares of land in the country's land fund, of which 74% are agricultural land and reserves. “The structure of agricultural land is as follows: 167.7 million hectares of pasture, 30 million hectares of arable land and...

Alexis Shakhtakhtinsky began his duties as Consul General of France last September and has already managed to get acquainted with many Almaty journalists. This time, representatives of travel agencies were invited to speak with the Consul General. The topic of the meeting was the development of French-Kazakh tourist ties.

"Our message...

Nursultan Nazarbayev met with the winners and prize-holders of international sports competitions. President of the National Olympic Committee Timur Kulibayev, chairman of the Committee for Sport and Physical Culture Serik Sapiyev, Master of Sports in Freestyle Mogul Yulia Galysheva, professional boxer Sadriddin Akhmedov, International Master of Sports in Ski Jumping...

The republic’s dependence on the main commodity is now at a 4-year high. Together with rising prices and increased production, Kazakhstan missed a chance to get off the oil needle.

In 2018, the republic exported 69.8 million tonnes of crude oil for a total of 37.8 billion. Physical sales volume has...

Azerbaijan’s Caspian Drilling Company Ltd and Kazakhstan’s KMG Drilling & Services have signed an agreement on trust management of a self-elevating floating drilling rig (SEFDR.

The contract was signed Feb. 16 as part of a meeting by Chairman of the Board of National Company KazMunayGaz JSC Alik Aydarbayev with President of...

Kazakhstan will fully provide itself with gasoline, diesel and jet fuel this year. This statement was made by Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev during a meeting of a colleague.

In 2019, the country will produce 12 million tonnes of basic petroleum products, and it will process 5% more oil than in 2018.

The...

Oil prices rose more than 2 percent to their highest this year on Friday after an outage at Saudi Arabia’s offshore oilfield boosted expectations for tightening supply, while progressing U.S.-Sino trade talks strengthened demand sentiment.

The international Brent crude benchmark rose $1.68, or 2.6 percent, to settle at $66.25 a barrel,...

British wholesale gas prices fell on Friday morning as expectations of milder weather for the rest of February curbed demand.

Within-day gas price down 0.30 pence at 47.00 p/therm by 0924 GMT.

Day-ahead gas price down 0.30 p to 46.55 p/therm.

Traders and analysts said weather forecasts indicated temperatures would be higher than...

Businesses are key to greater societal change, a young Kazakh expert drawing on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in investment analysis and decision-making says.

Yelena Novikova’s article on pension funds appeared in the September edition of “Global Solutions Journal,” along with contributors German Chancellor Angela Merkel and American economist and...

In 2018, banks collectively earned a net profit of 638.4 billion tenge, while the result of 2017 was a loss of 18.7 billion tenge. Assets of financial institutions increased by 4.2%, from 24.2 trillion to 25.2 trillion tenge. The historical maximum in terms of total assets was recorded in 2016....

Small and medium-sized businesses are key focus areas in the country, said European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for Kazakhstan Director Agris Preimanis at the sixth annual steering committee meeting. The bank intends to invest $540 million in various projects this year.

“Kazakhstan is one of the most important markets...

The volume of non-cash payments on the territory of Kazakhstan for 2018 amounted to 5.5 trillion tenge, which is 2.1 times more than in January-December 2017.

In 2018, non-cash payments via the Internet reached 2.9 trillion tenge, 2.7 times more than last year, which allowed them to take a share of...

Gas Processing Company has become a significant project for the region.

At the end of 2018, 516.1 billion tenge was invested in the economy of Aktobe region. In comparison with 2017, the volume of investments increased by 78.1 billion tenge or 10.8%. Almost a third of all investments are foreign, the...

Based on results of trades on the spot-market:

- on US dollar with settlements Т+0 in tenge no deals were made; at the session close quotes in the KASE trading system were absent;

- weighted average US dollar rate with settlements T+2 in tenge (USDKZT_SPT) made KZT377.65 per US dollar at the...

The U.S. dollar dropped on February 15 after San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly suggested the central bank may hold off on raising interest rates in 2019, bolstering risk appetite in the currency market.

The Fed probably will not need to raise rates this year, given a slowdown in...

On February 14, 2019, the press service of the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development of Kazakhstan distributed a press release with the results of 2018 on supervision in the field of industrial safety, where the MIID noted a low level of industrial safety at the facilities of ArcelorMittal Temirtau,...

Since the beginning of February 2019, over 4 million tonnes of coal have been loaded through the network of KTZh, including 3.1 million tonnes to the addresses of Kazakhstan stations. About 2.8 million tonnes accounted for loading for the combined heat and power plants of Kazakhstan, which is 0.2% more...

Gold jumped to a two-week high on Friday after weak U.S. economic data boosted expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve would hold pat on monetary tightening, while palladium matched an all-time high on a prolonged deficit.

Spot gold was up 0.7 percent at $1,321.31 an ounce at 2:21 p.m. EST (1921 GMT),...

Copper prices rose on Friday after better than expected lending data in China, the world's biggest consumer, bolstered the demand outlook.

Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was up 0.5 percent at $6,167 a tonne at 1510 GMT.

It was still down 0.5 percent this week, set for its first...

A unit of Russia’s Hevel Group will obtain EUR 56.2 million (USD 63.4m) in debt from the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) to install up to 90 MW of solar power capacity in Kazakhstan.

Hevel Kazakhstan LLP has signed a loan agreement with the lender for the provision of a long-term multi-currency credit...

In 2018, Agrarian Credit Corporation financed 14 feedlots for the purchase of more than 41 thousand bulls of various breeds in the amount of 8 billion tenge.

Agrarian Credit Corporation acts as the financial operator of the meat livestock development program for 2018-2027. One of the areas of the program is...

Kazakhstani grain increased in price in just a week from 15 thousand to 25 thousand tenge per tonne, depending on the class. This has not happened for many years, when the price driver has promoted them to such a high degree. What happened in the market? It turns out that...

According to the Statistics Committee at the Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in 2018/19 MY the harvest volumes of flaxseed reached the record level of 933.5 thsd tonnes, an increase of 37% compared with the previous season (683.3 thsd tonnes). Expansion of the planted areas (1103.6...

U.S. wheat futures fell to multimonth lows on Friday, despite broad strength in commodity and equity markets as grain traders monitored bearish technical signals as well as falling prices in the global cash wheat market. Soybeans climbed on optimism about U.S. trade negotiations with China, the world's top soy importer,...

Kazakhstan satellite communications and broadcasting system KazSat plans to expand its export of services, said the Vice-Minister of Defense and Aerospace Industry of Kazakhstan Marat Nurguzhin at a meeting of the board of the Ministry of Defense and Aerospace Industry (MDAI).

“Kazakhstan has its own space communications system, consisting of the...

Maritime cruises have never been as popular in Kazakhstan, a landlocked nation, as they have in other more ocean-accessible countries. But some domestic travel officials hope that will change.

“The cost of a Vietnam-Malaysia cruise for 10 days will cost 3,900 euro (US$4,409) per person. This is a high cost for...

China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 1.7 percent year on year in January, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.

The increase was down from 1.9 percent for December.

Food prices climbed 1.9 percent year on year last month, down 0.6 percentage points from December, according...

China's CRRC, the world's largest supplier of rail transit equipment, has recently opened its financial leasing subsidiary in a bid to expand its business overseas.

The financial leasing firm in Dongjiang Free Trade Port Zone in the northern Chinese municipality of Tianjin has a registered capital of 3 billion yuan (443...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit the Chinese capital, Beijing, on April 26-27 to take part in a One Belt, One Road forum, Russia’s Ambassador to China Andrey Denisov told journalists on Thursday, adding that the Russian leader would be the main guest of the event.

"As for the...

Ratings has affirmed Russia's credit rating at 'BBB-' with a positive outlook.

The credit rating agency cited a strong sovereign balance sheet and robust external finances.

"The prospect of harsher additional US sanctions remains high, maintaining risks for sovereign financing flexibility, private sector access to international financing and macroeconomic volatility, as well...

The rouble steadied against the dollar on Friday, supported by rising oil prices a day after the threat of new U.S. sanctions unnerved Russia's financial markets.

At 0730 GMT, the rouble was unchanged against the dollar at 66.66 and traded at 75.20 versus the euro. The Russian currency touched 67 against...

Vnesheconombank and the Skolkovo Foundation will coordinate efforts to support innovations and expertise of digital economy projects. The parties signed the corresponding memorandum during the Russian Investment Forum in Sochi, vestifinance.ru writes.

On the part of VEB.RF, the document was signed by the Deputy Chairman, Alexei Ivanchenko, on the part of...

Mongolia’s economy grew 6.9 percent in 2018, beating expectations and accelerating from a 5.3 percent pace the previous year, the statistics office said on Friday.

An increase in foreign trade revenues, particularly from resources such as coal and copper helped drive the expansion, which was higher than an Asia Development Bank...

Through the full year 2018, 38.213 million tons of crude oil (including gas condensate) and 19,161 billion cubic meters of natural gas were produced in Azerbaijan.

According to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, the total volume of production in the mining industry in 2018 amounted to 34.3 billion manat, increasing by...

Date: February 18, 2019; Source: Bloomberg.com

Energy

Precious and Industrial Metals

Agriculture

Date: February 18, 2019; Source: the National Bank of Kazakhstan