Islamic Development Bank to invest $1.2 billion into the Kazakhstan’s economy in 2011-2012

Islamic Development Bank is to invest $1.2 billion into the Kazakhstan’s economy in 2011-2012, the Prime Minister’s web site reports. The funds will be injected into the agriculture, transport infrastructure and development of Islamic finance in Kazakhstan. The agreement on investments was signed on the sidelines of the 7th World Islamic Economic Forum in Astana by Vice Prime Minister Asset Issekeshev of Kazakhstan and the Bank’s President Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani. The Bank will also be financing social projects. “At the moment, negotiations are under way to launch a wide-scaled project to modernize irrigation systems in Kazakhstan (…) for the Bank it is a traditional realm”, the Ministry of Industry and New Technology reports in a statement. At the 7th World Islamic Economic Forum, President Nazarbayev called the Bank to co-finance construction of the railway link from Kazakhstan to Iran across Turkmenistan. The 963-km-long railway link is estimated at $1.5 billion.