When a regional economy grows quickly, infrastructure soon stops being a backdrop. It becomes a constraint.
New plants need electricity. Deep processing needs reliable raw-material supplies and the ability to ship more sophisticated products. Export-oriented industries need access to international routes. Businesses need fast connections to major cities and external markets.
Kostanay Region is now at precisely this point. Growth in industry, mechanical engineering and processing is steadily increasing pressure on the energy and transport systems. The next stage of development therefore depends not only on how many new enterprises can be attracted, but also on whether infrastructure can support their further growth.
Kostanay is responding with several major projects at once: expanding its own generation, building a dry port, reshaping road corridors and modernising airports.
Together, they form the infrastructure framework for the region’s new economy.
The first limit to growth is energy
Energy provides an especially clear example of how industrial growth creates new demand for infrastructure.
Kostanay Region currently consumes around 3.085 billion kWh of electricity a year. Its own generation covers only about 29.4% of that amount, meaning a significant share of regional demand is met by electricity generated elsewhere.
As long as industry grows moderately, this model can work. But as new large-scale production facilities appear, dependence on external generation becomes a potential constraint.
Automotive manufacturing, metallurgy, component production, grain processing and other modern industries require a stable and predictable energy base. The longer production chains become, the more such consumers emerge.
That is why the region has begun rapidly expanding generation alongside industrialisation.
Back in 2022, the region had one 50 MW wind farm. Another wind farm of the same capacity was later commissioned in Arkalyk. Since 2025, eight new energy projects have been implemented: five solar and wind plants are already operational, while three more projects are under development, including the region’s first 40 MW gas-engine power plant.
All of these are surpassed in scale by the planned construction of 165 wind turbines in Rudny with total capacity of 1.2 GW. According to regional estimates, the new projects are expected to increase green generation capacity from 50 MW to 1.6 GW.
For the region, this is more than just an energy project.
If the new capacity is commissioned at the announced scale, the energy sector itself could become a factor in attracting the next wave of investment. A chain emerges:
new production increases electricity demand → investment creates new generating capacity → available energy enables further production.
In this model, infrastructure no longer merely catches up with economic growth—it begins to create room for it.
Dry port: logistics becomes part of industrial policy
The second potential constraint is transport.
The more finished products the region produces and the deeper it processes raw materials, the more complex logistics becomes. A production chain cannot simply bring in raw materials and ship out finished goods. It requires continuous movement of components, semi-finished products, equipment and goods between enterprises and markets.
The key project here is the Tobyl transport and logistics complex.
Announced investment totals KZT 63.8 billion, design capacity is 400,000 containers a year, and 500 jobs are planned. According to available data, once launched the complex is expected to increase container traffic through the region fivefold.
The project is positioned as an international dry port and is intended to connect the region to major transport corridors.
For Kostanay, this is especially important because of the region’s geography.
The region lies between major markets in Russia and central Kazakhstan, while routes to the west create access to the Trans-Caspian direction. Its logistics potential is therefore no longer tied only to its own freight flows.
The dry port can function as a point for concentrating and redistributing cargo across a much broader territory.
Its significance for the regional economy is even more interesting.
The automotive cluster needs to bring in equipment and components and ship out vehicles. Metallurgy needs to move large volumes of raw materials and products. Deep grain processing becomes more economically attractive if starch, gluten, amino acids, bioethanol and other products can be delivered efficiently to external markets.
Logistics therefore begins to determine more than transport costs. It affects which types of production make economic sense to locate in the region at all.
Kostanay is changing its transport geography
A dry port alone is not enough for this model. It needs a network of routes that consolidates freight flows from different directions.
That is why the region’s road configuration is changing at the same time.
Several directions stand out: modernisation of roads towards Russia, Astana, North Kazakhstan and Aktobe regions; construction of the Centre–West route through Arkalyk and Torgai with access to the Trans-Caspian direction; and completion of repairs on the Zhezkazgan–Petropavl road from Arkalyk to the border with Ulytau Region.
The last project is especially revealing: according to regional estimates, the new route should shorten the journey by more than 500 kilometres and redirect part of the transport flow from the south of the country through Arkalyk.
Behind this is a larger change.
Historically, transport peripherality constrained development in the southern part of Kostanay Region. That same territory can now acquire a different function and become one link in a route connecting northern, central and western Kazakhstan.
This is why Arkalyk’s restoration should be viewed as more than a social project for a single city.
After a break of more than 30 years, the airport has been restored: a new terminal, runway, taxiway and apron have been built. At the same time, reconstruction of the Zhezkazgan–Petropavl road and the Centre–West project are expected to strengthen the city’s connectivity with other regions.
If transport flows do change, Arkalyk gains a chance to shift its economic position—from a remote point on the regional map into a hub through which people, goods and capital begin to move.
In that case, infrastructure changes the region’s economic geography itself.
The airport as an indicator of business connectivity
Kostanay Airport shows another dimension of the changes.
Following reconstruction, its floor area increased from 5,200 to 8,700 square metres, capacity reached 250 passengers per hour, and the number of aircraft stands rose from two to seven. The airport gained the ability to handle modern passenger and cargo aircraft.
Passenger dynamics are even more revealing.
The airport handled around 295,000 passengers in 2022 and 454,000 in 2025—an increase of more than 50% in three years.
The geography of flights has also expanded. Frequencies to Astana and Almaty have increased, routes to Shymkent and Tashkent have become year-round, and flights operate to Moscow, Antalya, Sharm el-Sheikh and Nha Trang. The passenger terminal continues to be expanded, including a separate international-departures hall.
At first glance, aviation may seem far removed from industrial policy. In practice, the link is direct.
Modern industries attract managers, engineers, suppliers and foreign partners. The more complex the regional economy becomes, the more it depends on the mobility of people as well as goods.
Growth in air passenger traffic can therefore be seen both as a consequence of rising business activity and as a condition for its continuation.
The same logic explains the arrival of international hotel brands in Kostanay: Marriott and Novotel are under construction, while a Holiday Inn project is under consideration.
This is infrastructure for an economy becoming more open to external connections.
But infrastructure is not only about megaprojects
Large energy and transport projects are the most visible, but they work only when basic infrastructure inside the territory is in place.
Kostanay Region has the largest road network of any region in Kazakhstan—more than 9,000 kilometres. Over the past three years, more than 3,000 kilometres of local roads have been repaired and 1,070 streets in 305 settlements upgraded. Road management is also moving to three-year planning instead of repairing individual sections only as problems arise.
There is another, less obvious, infrastructure indicator.
According to regional data, 100% access to water-supply services for both urban and rural residents was achieved in 2025. At the beginning of 2023, the figure for the rural population was 80.4%. Over three years, KZT 73.8 billion was invested in water supply and sanitation projects, 116 villages gained access to water supply, and networks were upgraded in 20 settlements.
These projects do not directly increase vehicle output or grain processing.
But they affect another critical condition: the territory’s ability to retain population and labour. For a region with rising demand for skilled workers, the quality of basic infrastructure becomes part of economic competitiveness.
The boundary between “economic” and “social” infrastructure is therefore gradually becoming blurred.
Infrastructure also creates a multiplier
Infrastructure projects have another effect: they create demand within the regional economy themselves.
Public procurement provides a clear example. The share of local businesses in procurement rose from 66% in 2022 to 79.4% in 2025. As a result, part of the money spent on construction and infrastructure development remains in the region through orders for local companies, wages and subsequent consumption.
This is an important detail.
When an infrastructure project is built in a region but almost all equipment, contractors and specialists come from outside, a significant share of the economic effect quickly leaves the territory.
The more work local companies can perform, the further the initial investment spreads through the regional economy.
The multiplier therefore emerges at two levels.
First, infrastructure creates demand for construction, materials and services. Then the roads, generating capacity and logistics facilities that are built reduce constraints on private business and create opportunities for new investment.
From infrastructure that catches up to infrastructure that opens up growth
Every fast-growing region reaches a point where existing infrastructure is no longer sufficient.
Judging by the scale of the announced projects, Kostanay Region is approaching precisely such a point.
Growth in mechanical engineering increases demand for energy and component supplies. Deep processing of agricultural products raises requirements for energy, storage and exports. A larger market creates additional mobility of people and goods.
The response is a different order of infrastructure altogether: 1.2 GW of new wind generation, a dry port handling 400,000 containers, new interregional road corridors and modernised airports.
But their real effect will not be determined simply by the fact that they are built.
The key question is whether they remove the constraints that currently stand in the way of the next stage of economic growth.
If new generation allows enterprises to connect without power shortages, the dry port lowers the cost of access to external markets, new roads reshape logistics, and aviation improves business mobility, infrastructure will begin to function as an economic engine in its own right.
At that point, the logic of regional development changes.
First, economic growth creates demand for infrastructure. Then new infrastructure itself creates opportunities for the next round of growth.
This transition is becoming one of the key conditions for the further development of Kostanay Region.