Economy Diversification: Investors Are Ready to Help
The State Program on Forced Industrial Innovative Development will get a start in Kazakhstan in 2010. Under government plans, this program is expected to eliminate drawbacks of the previous government's initiatives and will bring the Kazakhstan’s economy to a relatively new quality level. In its expectations, the government relies on help of the international institutions, both who invest and operate in Kazakhstan. Exactly the foreign companies’ participation in the economy diversification and technological development of our country will be the main topic of discussion at the twenty second plenary session of Foreign Investors Council (FIC) under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, to be held in Astana on December 4, 2009. On the threshold of the session, we asked we asked some of the FIC companies' representatives to share with us their vision of potential interaction between the investors and the state in this area.

The Foreign Investors Council: The Cooperation Tool for Investors and the State
Interview for Kazakhstan Magazinewith Mrs. Z.K. Kanapianova, Management Board Chairman, KFICA

Kazakhstan Content: Legal Aspects
Recently, many companies operating in Kazakhstan, including in subsoil usage, have encountered new local content legal requirements when procuring goods, works and services. This article discusses legal regulation of local content and proposed amendments to law on this matter. This subject will only grow in important, given the Kazakhstan government’s policies of import substitution and increasing the volume of goods, works and services purchased by investors in Kazakhstan.

Made in Kazakhstan: Is it the Time to Put the Screws on?
After the long and inefficient appeals to business to increase the share of local content the government intends to replace the carrot by the stick. It is going to use administrative methods in order to make "Support the domestic producer!" slogan work. This purpose is reflected in "The Concept of Kazakhstani content development", presented to the Kazakhstani parliament at the end of September, 2009.                                          

Oil chronicles: Plans delayed, Ambitions not Forgotten

The analysis of the preliminary current year’s performance indicators of the Kazakhstan oil and gas sector and of the 2010 forecast has showed that the republic has not managed to implement its ambitious plans to become one of the world’s top oil exporters as it announced earlier.                                                                                                                     

The State and Mining & Metallurgy Sector: Autumn Marathon
The news in Kazakhstan is that soon the responsibility of companies for the way they make public purchases will be toughened, and also all mineral extraction companies will be obliged to transfer to electronic purchasing of goods, works and services. Thus, retaining the operating tax rates in the subsurface minerals sector, the government hopes to increase the level of Kazakhstani content in the extraction sectors.

The Group Delisting, Third Spiral and Credit Holes
In the last two months the major event in the financial market was the decision of Kazakhstani stock exchange to delist the shares of three default financial institutes – BTA Bank, Alliance Bank and Astana-Finance. According to KASE, the major reason, driving this decision, was the negative indicator of equity capital at the beginning of 2009. However, it is still unclear why the delisting of grain long papers took place in the last months.