Economic crisis will not hit Kazakhstan until 2014: expert

Economic crisis will not hit Kazakhstan until 2014, Bauyrzhan Turlybekov, head of macroeconomic development and medium-term forecasts at the Institute of Economic Research told Tengrinews.kz. According to him, the crisis will come to Kazakhstan from Europe. “It will strike Europe in 2013. Recession is at zero point right now: European economy is not declining and neither it is growing. They will finish 2012 at the same point, and will continue so until their reserves are exhausted. 2013 will be a difficult time,” Turlybekov said. According to the expert, Kazakhstan and Europe have a time gap of at least one year. “That’s why we are talking about 2014,” he explained. According to the speaker, Kazakhstan’s small and medium business will be the first to feel the crisis. “They are linked to big companies, for example, canteens for construction workers, transportation services. Construction and services, metallurgy, oil and gas sectors: they will feel it for sure. State and private sectors will be affected in different ways. It will be difficult for everyone, but each player will feel it differently,” the expert said. According to Turlybekov, in case of the crisis Kazakhstan will be able to stabilize the economy at the cost of reserves within 25 months. “We have to be realistic: by selling nothing and just spending everything we have accumulated in two years, we will be able to live without feeling the crisis,” he said. The speaker also noted that the outcome of the crisis for Kazakhstan will much depend on how the country can trade its resources. Earlier Tengrinews.kz English cited head of the Investment Promotion Technical Assistance Program of the Islamic Development Bank (ITAP IDB) Khalid Khalafalla who stated that the global crisis might be good for Kazakhstan’s economy and such scenario was possible if investors re-directed their investments from developed countries into another region, Kazakhstan in particular. By Arman Baimukhanov