Kazakhstan's energy sector sees investment growth

/By AzerNews/

By Aynur Karimova

Kazakhstan’s energy sector has attracted huge amount of investment in the last five years.

"Since the start of the implementation of a program titled “Tariff in exchange for investments” in 2009, investments in the energy sector grew by over 2.5 times (264 percent)," the analytical service Ranking.kz said.

In 2014, investments in this sector reached 541.2 billion tenges (185.8 tenges = $1), while the total amount of investments over five years stood at 2.23 trillion tenges or about $14 billion, taking into account the average exchange rates for each year.

The own funds of the market participants and funds from the budget are among the sources of investments to the fixed capital of Kazakhstan’s energy sector. They provided 87 percent of investments.

"Although investments of the market participants exceeded state investments in 2014, the budget became the main participant of the investment process at the initial stage (2009-2010)," the analytical service said.

Some 88 billion tenge was allocated from the state budget in 2009, and this figure was increased to 227 billion tenge in 2014.

"Kazakhstan’s energy companies have invested 955.4 billion tenge for their development since 2009 by increasing investments by 28 percent per year, on average," the service said.

For instance, the country’s largest energy generating state holding Samruk-Energo invested 413.5 billion tenge in 2009-2014 within the “Tariff in exchange for investments” program.

Kazakhstan is set to continue attracting foreign investments in various sectors of the economy. To realize this goal, the country has developed a draft law on the improvement of investment climate in the country. It plans to offer benefits to foreigners investing at least $20 million in new projects in the country.

The law is also aimed at stimulating further activities, providing a mechanism for investment incentives provision through the conclusion of investment contracts, as well as ensuring the state support to investors and implement investment projects in important sectors.

Analyzes prove that Kazakhstan is in the list of countries with a high level of inflow of foreign direct investments. This is shown by huge economic figures - the total volume of the foreign direct investments invested in the Kazakh economy amounted to $180 billion in 2013.

Kazakhstan is interested not only in foreign investments, but also in domestic funds. The country plans to allocate over 164 billion tenges to financing national geological projects in 2015-2019.