Page 3 - Kazakh Outlook 2025

Executive summary
Kazakhstan managed to stabilise inflation below double-digits in 2024, but inflationary pressures remain, with the rate standing above the central bank’s target level of 5%-6%. This is largely due to Kazakhstan’s continued economic reliance on Russia, especially on the import side. The Kazakh currency, the tenge, continues to follow fluctuations in the Russian ruble.
The ex-Soviet state has continued to develop its capacities to function as a transit zone for trade between China and Europe that bypasses the territory of Russia.
The country anticipates lower oil revenues in 2025 coupled with higher withdrawals from the “rainy day” National Fund. That remains an abiding concern for international observers.
Kazakhstan, meanwhile, continues to look for ways to diversify oil exports away from the Russia-dependent CPC pipeline, but hurdles remain on this front. The country is unlikely to significantly reduce its dependence on the CPC any time soon.
On the political side, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev continued crackdowns on dissent in 2024 and did not revisit plans to improve local self-governance around the country. At the same time, the authorities appear to be strengthening ties with Russia, after two years of flirting with a public image of a country that’s distancing itself from Moscow. Tokayev is likely preparing to pick Russia’s Rosatom to take the lead on constructing the country’s first nuclear power plant
(NPP).
1.0 Political outlook
Following the local election experiment held in 42 districts and three provincial towns in late 2023, Kazakhstan never followed up on President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s previously mentioned plans to broaden the scope of its local polls. No plans for further “pilot mode” elections were mentioned throughout 2024 and it almost seems as if the Kazakh authorities have forgotten about the “Concept for the Development of Local Self-Government in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2025” adopted in 2021. bne IntelliNews speculated in its Kazakhstan Outlook 2024 that Tokayev’s regime fears loosening its tight grip because it is anxious over any possibility of a recurrence of the “Bloody January” unrest of 2022. As such, Tokayev’s regime has not lost any momentum in continuing to crack down on dissent.
This was demonstrated in the months preceding the countrywide referendum on whether to construct an NPP. Many Kazakh activists
3 Kazakhstan Outlook 2025 www.intellinews.com