National Bank’s Governor Gregory Marchenko. © Yaroslav Radlovsky
Kazakhstan has all the preconditions to lessen its dependency on oil prices, National Bank’s Governor Gregory Marchenko said July 25 during the online conference arranged by Profinance.kz. “To reduce its dependency on oil, Kazakhstan is implementing the first five-year industrialization program for 2010-2014”, Mr. Marchenko said. When asked if the National Bank should resort to the same anti-crisis measures as those taken in 2008 and 2009 in case of a new wave of the global crisis, he said that “one can evaluate the effectiveness of those measures through comparing the current situation in Kazakhstan to that in other countries (…) I mean the size of the sovereign debt, repercussions of toughened budgeting policies, industrial actions, production decline [taking place in a number of countries]. Though some experts doubt the effectiveness of the anti-crisis measures, Kazakhstan’s GDP grew by 7.5% in 2011”. “Suffice it to look at the situation in Iceland, Portugal, Hungary (…) In case of a second wave of the crisis, the impact on Kazakhstan will be different and the new measures will be tailored to suit the new crisis situation”, he said. When asked what other factors apart from oil prices will have an effect on the Kazakhstan’s economy, Mr. Marchenko said these will be prices for gas, iron ore, base metals and grain. “Secondly, the situation will reflect integration processes within the Customs Union [of Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus] , accession into the WTO. And thirdly, situations in the neighboring China and Russia will also have an impact”, he said. As far as further economic forecasts are concerned, Mr. Marchenko said the nation’s GDP is expected to reach 6-7% in 2012. “In the mid run, the country’s budget, economic policies, including the monetary policy, have been developed for three possible scenarios of the global economy development (…) The major difference among the three is the oil price. The worst scenario envisages measures in case the oil price hits the bottom of $40 per barrel. The Government in partnership with the National Bank have developed respective action plans, incentives to support the economy (…) We are ready for challenges that may rise against the backdrop of the global economic uncertainty”, Mr. Marchenko summed up.
Kazakhstan has all the preconditions to lessen its dependency on oil prices, National Bank’s Governor Gregory Marchenko said July 25 during the online conference arranged by Profinance.kz.
“To reduce its dependency on oil, Kazakhstan is implementing the first five-year industrialization program for 2010-2014”, Mr. Marchenko said.
When asked if the National Bank should resort to the same anti-crisis measures as those taken in 2008 and 2009 in case of a new wave of the global crisis, he said that “one can evaluate the effectiveness of those measures through comparing the current situation in Kazakhstan to that in other countries (…) I mean the size of the sovereign debt, repercussions of toughened budgeting policies, industrial actions, production decline [taking place in a number of countries]. Though some experts doubt the effectiveness of the anti-crisis measures, Kazakhstan’s GDP grew by 7.5% in 2011”.
“Suffice it to look at the situation in Iceland, Portugal, Hungary (…) In case of a second wave of the crisis, the impact on Kazakhstan will be different and the new measures will be tailored to suit the new crisis situation”, he said.
When asked what other factors apart from oil prices will have an effect on the Kazakhstan’s economy, Mr. Marchenko said these will be prices for gas, iron ore, base metals and grain. “Secondly, the situation will reflect integration processes within the Customs Union [of Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus] , accession into the WTO. And thirdly, situations in the neighboring China and Russia will also have an impact”, he said.
As far as further economic forecasts are concerned, Mr. Marchenko said the nation’s GDP is expected to reach 6-7% in 2012.
“In the mid run, the country’s budget, economic policies, including the monetary policy, have been developed for three possible scenarios of the global economy development (…) The major difference among the three is the oil price. The worst scenario envisages measures in case the oil price hits the bottom of $40 per barrel. The Government in partnership with the National Bank have developed respective action plans, incentives to support the economy (…) We are ready for challenges that may rise against the backdrop of the global economic uncertainty”, Mr. Marchenko summed up.