Word: kazakhstan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...hard to disagree. Kazakhstan is now the most prosperous nation in the region, accounting for 60% of Central Asia's entire GDP. This week, U.S. President George W. Bush will welcome Nazarbayev at the White House, and then the Kazakhstani President will go to the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Kazakhstan's growing oil shipments to world markets, and its potential to emerge as a stable, modernized, predominantly Muslim but religiously tolerant state with a secular government in the volatile region, have obvious appeal for the Bush Administration - so much so that it tends to downplay the country...
...Getting the country where it is now has taken guts, though. "Back in 1991, there was no money, no food, no nothing," says noted Kazakhstan economist Rakhman Alshanov, a mastermind behind the early 1990s liberal economic reforms. Nazarbayev had to rule by decree. He twice dissolved the Parliament, and gave reformers the latitude to abruptly terminate the state's paternalistic support of industry as well as collective and state farms. "No more injections into a wooden leg - no more credits to big state-run industries," Alshanov explains. The message was straightforward: earn or else...
...Credits went where they belonged: "New banks immediately accomplished their basic function - that of extending credits to encourage budding businesses," says Ulf Wokurka, a former Deutsche Bank director and now CFO of Samruk, Kazakhstan's holding company, which runs such giants as KazTelecom and oil and natural gas firm KazMunaiGaz...
...help attract that money, Kazakhstan established a single investment regime for both domestic and foreign investors, and since 1993 over $40 billion in gross direct foreign investment has flowed in. Now Kazakhstan is churning out 1.2 million bbl. of oil a day - and exports 80%. Nazarbayev plans to triple the volume and join the group of 10 leading oil exporters within a decade...
...results have been phenomenal. Over the last six years Kazakhstan's GDP growth has averaged 10%, and it hit 9.3% in the first six months of this year. Tax collecting stands at over 95%. Kazakhstan has a BBB positive outlook investment rating from Standard & Poor's. The E.U. and the U.S. have recognized Kazakhstan as a "market economy," and it has a firm chance of joining the World Trade Organization this year...