Pension savings of Kazakhstan citizens to be consolidated in single pension fund by July 1

All the pension savings of Kazakhstan citizens have to be consolidated into a single pension fund before July 1, 2013, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the Kazakhstan government’s website quoting Vice Prime-Minister Kairat Kelimbetov as saying. According to the Vice Prime-Minister, following the instruction of President Nazarbayev to transfer all the individual pension accounts from multiple pension funds into a single pension fund, it is suggested to establish a single pension fund on the basis of the state pension fund, 100-percent owned by the National Bank. The Minister stressed that Kazakhstan government would own the single pension fund and its establishment would not change the principles of the pension system: the system of individual pension saving accounts would remain unchanged. “The state guarantee on the accounts' security will remain in place for all types of compulsory pension payments. All the pension savings of the citizens will be transferred (into a single fund). Creation of the single pension fund does not mean nationalizing of pension savings: the savings will still be owned by the citizens. They will be stored in the National Bank (National Bank will be the custodian bank),” the message states. Besides, the National Bank will manage the pension assets of the single pension fund in line with the investment strategy approved by the Council for Management of Pension Assets of the Single Pension Fund. The Council's composition will be approved by the President of Kazakhstan. The pension assets from the single pension fund will be invested based on the principles of diversification, security and moderate profitability. “The existing pension funds will be able to continue their activities as managers of the investment portfolio (they will legally have a right to exchange their pension assets management licenses for investment portfolio management licenses) or pension funds for voluntary pension savings,” the website writes. Implementation of the above plans will require amendments in 8 codes and 22 laws of Kazakhstan. They will have to be made in the nearest months.