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In early September, the President of Kazakhstan will again address the population with an annual message. On the eve of this event, I decided to talk to well-known economists about their expectations regarding the main political statement in the country.
We did not notice how we began to borrow from banks for almost everything. For a new phone, for a car and an apartment, for a wedding, for food, and even loans to cover other loans. And don't forget about payday loans, vacation loans, and loans again to close all these loans. As a result, today we owe trillions of tenge to banks. And this figure is not even growing every year, but from month to month.
"When developing laws and various rules, financial and industrial groups and large businesses have a great influence on decision-making. This is typical for almost all countries, including developed ones. But when this happens behind the scenes, in conditions of complete legal instability, a wide field for corruption is created. In the civilized world, politics is not formed behind closed doors," Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said last spring, speaking to deputies.
A regular meeting of the economic club was held at the site of the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, where the draft National Development Plan "Kazakhstan-2029", developed by the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms of the Republic of Kazakhstan (ASPIR), was discussed. The Agency has done a lot of work on the formation of this strategy, however, experts expressed interest in reviewing and finalizing it.
The sociological service of the TALAP Center conducted a unique study on the health of Kazakhstani people.
The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz became the largest oil supply disruption in history. But the global market did not go into an uncontrolled price spiral. The shock was sharp, but shorter than the most severe forecasts had anticipated. This is a story not only about oil, but also about which forecasting methods work better under conditions of war, physical supply shortage, and high uncertainty.
Everyone was watching oil, food, and aviation kerosene. But the most durable consequences of the war manifested themselves in other sectors: fertilizers, petrochemicals, aluminum, insurance, and ocean freight. This is a story about why the loudest fears do not always turn out to be the main impact.
The Gulf War passed by Kazakhstan’s export route — but not by its economy. The real blow came not through Hormuz, but through the Black Sea, the CPC, Tengiz, and the limited capacity of alternative routes. This is the story of a country for which a high oil price proved weaker than an infrastructure disruption.
