To spend or not to spend

Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, pictured below, surprised Anvar Saidenov when he appointed him as the new head of the central bank. But Saidenov has an enviable task in working out how to spend the new and growing wealth that the country is gaining from oil. Christopher Pala reports.

AFTER FIVE YEARS of rapid economic  growth, Kazakhstan is set this year to make important decisions on government spending increases and on whether to continue the public-sector reforms that started so well in the financial sector. The thoroughly reformed banking and financial system has now reached the level of eastern Europe. The number of banks has been trimmed from 230 to 32 in a decade. Banking assets are 35% of GDP (compared with 15% in 2000) and there is no reason why they should not reach Poland’s level of 70% in a few years, since assets are doubling every two years.

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