Kazakhstan’s National Oil Fund could be a possible source to finance infrastructure projects: ADB Vice-President for Private Sector and Cofinancing Operations

Asian Development Bank believes the Kazakhstan’s National Oil Fund could be a possible source to finance infrastructure projects in Kazakhstan, Newskaz.ru reports, citing Lakshmi Venkatachalam, ADB Vice-President for Private Sector and Cofinancing Operations, as saying. “Regardless of the impressive development of Kazakhstan for the last two decades, the country’s infrastructure still calls for vast investments (…) the country’s National Oil Fund, Samruk-Kazyna Sovereign Wealth Fund, pension funds, as well as the internal and external money markets can be sources to finance infrastructure projects”, Ms. Venkatachalam said when speaking at the sitting of the Foreign Investors Council held in Astana. “Kazakhstan has no clear strategy in place to attract money to finance this kind of projects (…) in this context, the Bank in partnership with the country’s Government is working to introduce innovative models of ownership, management and financing of infrastructure projects so that the public money could be more effectively used”, she said. “The major goal of the efforts is to offer incentives for the private sector to participate in such projects (…) so that prospect investors could enjoy greater safeguards and so that possible risks could be minimized in projects of prime priority for the country’s Government”, Ms. Venkatachalam. The ADB, which has 67 member countries and territories including Japan and the United States, helps its developing members tackle poverty by providing loans, technical assistance and grants for a broad range of development activities.