September 2010|1 - KazEnergy

ECONOmy
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sures.
For instance Kazakhstan can boast a relatively
high level of GDP real growth, which reached
1.2% in 2009 (US$110 billion) and 8% in the
first half of 2010 (US$81.5 bln). International
reserves of the country peaked at US$53.1 bln,
up from a meagre US$3.5 bln in the middle of
2001. Foreign investments influx in the first
half of 2010 achieved US$5.1 billion.
At the beginning of 2003 the Government of
Kazakhstan adopted the Innovative Industrial
Development Strategy for the years 2003-
2015.
The Strategy came at a time when basic economic
reforms had been completed, successfully
replacing the old system of economic
relations with a market economy. In the first
decade of its independence Kazakhstan was
successful in fostering market-based institutions,
the country’s energy industry saw a rapid
growth and the banking sector has taken the
leading position within the CIS countries.
However, being aware of the economy’s heavy
reliance on the energy and minerals sectors
the Kazakhstan Government adopted an ambitious
three-stage New Industrial Development
Strategy to ensure sustainable development
of the domestic economy through its genuine
diversification, creation of new competitive industries,
modernization and expansion of the
existing infrastructure with the ultimate goal of
moving from an extraction-based industry to a
service and technology based economy.
On top of the successfully operating National
Oil Fund established in 2000, and the Development
Bank of Kazakhstan, the first ever
institution of its kind in the FSU, established
in 2001, new development institutions were
established in 2003 within the Strategy, all deriving
millions of dollars from oil revenues.
These new institutions included the Sustainable
Development Fund ”Kazyna”, Export
Credit Corporation, Centre for Engineering
and Transfer of Technologies, Centre for
Market Research and Analysis among others,
which were further united under the “Samruk-
Kazyna” Fund.
iNvESTmENT pOTENTial
The country’s investment potential is now
based on minerals and raw materials. Because
their exploitation forms a considerable part of
the national gross product, the quality and extent
of deposits’ utilization and the reproduction
of raw material reserves play a decisive
role in the present and future of Kazakhstan.
For example, it is envisaged that exploration
of the oil and gas field Kashagan, which is
one of largest fields in the world, will make
Kazakhstan one of the major producers of hy-