It's official: Kazakhstan has a working free-market economy
and it is booming. A string of announcements over the past few
months has made the central Asian republic's economy the darling of
international institutions and superpowers.
The US started the ball rolling in March when it recognized the
country as a "market economy". It is a label that Washington has
been reluctant to bestow on many of the countries of the former
Soviet Union because of complaints by producers at home. Most of
the former Soviet states are big exporters of cheap raw materials,
produced at below-market costs thanks to what is effectively free
power.
In part US recognition was a political payoff for Kazakhstan's
support of the US-led anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan but
it is also hard to ignore the country's rapid return to robust
health. The Kazakhstan economy has shone in the past two years -
and not just by...
