Overview: Kazakhstan, the second largest of the former Soviet states in territory, possesses vast oil, coal, rare metals, and agricultural resources. While the economy is gradually making the transition from a Soviet command system to a market system, strong elements of state control persist including government ownership of most economic assets and a continued system of mandatory state procurement for the key products such as grain and energy; likewise, agriculture remains largely collectivized. On the other hand, new businesses are forming rapidly, the economy is opening to foreign investment, and 12% of state-owned commercial enterprises have been privatized. In 1993, a three-year industrial privatization program was launched; an independent currency was successfully introduced; and two large joint ventures were established with western oil companies. These far-reaching structural transformations have resulted in a cumulative decline in national income of more than 30% since 1990. Loose monetary policies have kept the inflation rate high, averaging 28% per month for 1993 and accelerating at the end with the disruption caused by a new currency. Since the introduction of its independent currency in November 1993, the government has renewed its commitment to fiscal discipline and accelerating economic reform. However, growing economic hardship and rising ethnic tensions between Kazakhs and Russians over the division of economic assets will likely lead to strong pressure to backtrack.

National product: GDP - purchasing power equivalent - $60.3 billion (1993 estimate from the UN International Comparison Program, as extended to 1991 and published in the World Bank's World Development Report 1993; and as extrapolated to 1993 using official Kazakhstani statistics, which are very uncertain because of major economic changes since 1990)

National product real growth rate: -13% (1993 est.)

National product per capita: $3,510 (1993 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 28% per month (1993)

Unemployment rate: 0.6% includes only officially registered unemployed; also large numbers of underemployed workers

Budget:
revenues: $NA
expenditures: $NA, including capital expenditures of $1.76 billion (1991 est.)

Exports: $1.3 billion to outside the FSU countries (1993)
commodities: oil, ferrous and nonferrous metals, chemicals, grain, wool, meat (1992)
partners: Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

Imports: $358.3 million from outside the FSU countries (1993)
commodities: machinery and parts, industrial materials, oil and gas (1992)
partners: Russia and other former Soviet republics, China

External debt: $1.5 billion debt to Russia

Industrial production: growth rate -16% (1993)

Electricity:
capacity: 19,135,000 kW
production: 81.3 billion kWh
consumption per capita: 4,739 kWh (1992)

Industries: extractive industries (oil, coal, iron ore, manganese, chromite, lead, zinc, copper, titanium, bauxite, gold, silver, phosphates, sulfur), iron and steel, nonferrous metal, tractors and other agricultural machinery, electric motors, construction materials

Agriculture: accounts for almost 40% of net material product; employs about 26% of the labor force; grain, mostly spring wheat; meat, cotton, wool

Illicit drugs: illicit cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy; mostly for CIS consumption; limited government eradication program; used as transshipment point for illicit drugs to Western Europe and North America from Central and Southwest Asia

Economic aid:
recipient: approximately $1 billion in foreign credits to become available in 1994

Currency: national currency the tenge introduced on 15 November 1993
Exchange rates: NA

Fiscal year: calendar year

NOTE: The information regarding Kazakhstan on this page is re-published from the 1995 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Kazakhstan Economy 1995 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Kazakhstan Economy 1995 should be addressed to the CIA.