By Patrick Gill
KAZAKHSTAN HAS THE most sophisticated banking sector in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) but the range of instruments available to domestic institutional investors is still limited. The government has now turned its attention to developing the stock market and pension funds as the next stage of its plan to establish Almaty as a regional financial centre.
With annual GDP growth of 8% to 10% expected for the next few years, investors generally see the domestic scene as favourable. However, the Almaty stock exchange suffers from a lack of liquidity, and pension funds have few options for investment. The number of mutual funds and other investment vehicles is expected to develop as regulation improves and more companies turn to the capital markets.
But so far there is little sign that the city’s Kase stock exchange is shaking off the illiquidity that plagues it. Larger Kazakh companies have recently...
