Kazakhstan Global Investment Roundtable 2019: Investing with KAZAKH INVEST

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MUSAVIR WANI:

Nur-Sultan: The Third annual Kazakhstan Global Investment Roundtable (KGIR-2019) chaired by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin was held in Nur-Sultan. The organizers of KGIR-2019 were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan and JSC NC “KAZAKH INVEST”.

KGIR-2019 is one of the key events for Kazakhstan’s business and foreign investors’ community, which gathered more than 1100 heads of the world’s major companies and domestic enterprises, international experts, representatives of international and state organizations. About 600 of them are foreign participants from 41 countries (the USA, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, India, Singapore, Korea, and the UAE). They include the top management of the global companies such as: Cisco, Nokia, CITIC Bank Corporation, WILO SE Group, AGCO Corporation, Valmont Industries, Tyson Foods, Yildirim Group and other companies.

The participants agreed on investments and signed commercial agreements for 45 projects worth USD 8.9 bn. During KGIR-2018, 32 commercial documents totaling USD 4.7 billion were signed between the Kazakhstan and foreign companies.

“Today, the country offers a wide range of opportunities for foreign investors. Realizing the importance of investments for our economy, we have created a Coordinating Council to attract foreign investments, and I am entrusted with the duties of the investment ombudsman. Of course, this will allow us to quickly resolve issues arising in the course of investment activities and effectively interact with investors,” the head of the Kazakhstan Government said during the Plenary Session of KGIR-2019. 

The investments were seen in almost every sector. In particular, in the field of gas chemistry, the Akimat of Mangistau region and the Singaporean company Westgasoil signed a Cooperation Agreement to implement the project of methanol and olefins production. The project implementation will allow localizing the export-oriented production of chemicals through the development of the country’s gas chemical complex.

In order to develop exports, Yıldirim Holding (Turkey) and the akimat of Zhambyl region signed an Agreement to construct soda ash plant in Zhambyl region. The plant’s design capacity will be 400 thous. tons per year.

The project of greenhouse complexes construction is also focused on export-oriented agricultural products, a corresponding project agreement was signed between KAZAKH INVEST NC JSC and the Russian investor ECO-Culture AH. In the food industry, a Memorandum of Cooperation was signed between the Akimat of Pavlodar region and Beijing NAALE GROUP (China) for sugar plant construction. In addition, this investor expressed the intention to build an aluminum can factory in Almaty, having signed an agreement with the city Akimat.

In the field of transport and logistics, YDA Holding (Turkey) signed an agreement with the Akimat of the Turkestan region to construct and operate an international airport. This is the first airport in the history of Kazakhstan, the construction of which will be started from scratch. Another transport project is the creation of a logistics hub on the basis of the international airport in Aktobe, the corresponding agreement was signed between KAZAKH INVEST NC JSC and AEON corporation (Russia). Foreign investor holds and/or manages the majority stakes of 14 regional airports of Russia (in the cities of Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, Volgograd, Tomsk, Astrakhan, Chita, Tyumen, Perm, Murmansk, Kemerovo, Mineralnye Vody, Kaliningrad, Ulan-Ude, Vladikavkaz) and minority packages (48-49%) of Barnaul and Stavropol airports). The project aims to create an additional aviation hub in the west of the country and a new route for multimodal cargo transportation in the Europe-Asia direction.

In the MMC sector, an agreement was reached between Canarax Trading LLC (UAE) and the Akimat of Pavlodar region to produce technical silicon with the prospect of increasing the design capacity to 165 thous. tons per year. It is planned to produce 30 thous. tons at the first stage. The plant’s products will be used for the production of metal alloys, organic compounds, electronics and solar energy.

In the field of healthcare, an agreement was signed with the Shanghai Constructions Group (PRC) to construct a 1000-bed multidisciplinary clinic in Shymkent. It is expected that the clinic, outfitted with new technologies and equipment, will provide a full range of medical services and will become the only proton therapy center in Central Asia.

At the same time, a Roadmap was signed in the field of education for the implementation of project “Construction of an Educational Metropolis – Kindergarten, School, College, University” with the Singapore investor Kinder World in three regions: cities of Nur-Sultan, Almaty and Shymkent. In the coming years, a network of international schools will be built, as well as a college and an educational campus in the capital of Kazakhstan.

In addition, agreements have been reached on projects such as the construction of data centers and the introduction of 5G projects in Kazakhstan.

According to the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, A. Mamin, investments are a key factor in the development of Kazakhstan, more than $300 billion were invested in the Kazakhstan economy during the years of independence.

In addition to the issues of investment potential of Kazakhstan, the issues of further implementation of the program of privatization and IPO, development of financial technologies, trends in the development of energy and mining sector of the country were discussed.

The benefits of privatization are not limited only to receiving money from the sale of an asset. The government should pay attention to the post-privatization period. Ex-Vice-Prime Minister of Turkey Mehmet Simsek voiced his recommendations to Kazakhstan during the round table “Kazakhstan’s privatization program: creating a capital market through IPO of major state-owned enterprises.”

Private sector shows its growing interest in privatization in Kazakhstan and the competition arises. If earlier only three or less investors participated in tenders, today this number increased to three or four. Mr. Alikhan Smailov, the Minister of Finance, spoke about this during the roundtable “Kazakhstan’s Privatisation Drive: Building a Capital Market through the IPO of State-Owned Champions”.

 “Private sector shows its growing interest in privatization in Kazakhstan, the competition has increased on tenders, the average number of participants is four or five companies, previously this number was not higher than three”, the Minister said.

In general, Kazakhstan is interested in the fact that about 20% of the shares in national companies still go to IPO, in order to bring the best standards of corporate governance in these companies, the Minister said. In 2019, 120 Kazakhstani enterprises will go private. Smailov noted that Kazakhstan is ready for cooperation in general and invited investors to participate in the privatization process.

The continuation of KGIR will be a series of investment activities on global investments aimed at targeting investors in 7 priority countries: USA, UK, Germany, France, Japan, Singapore and South Korea.