Kazakhstan’s trade performance has displayed remarkable resilience to recent economic shocks, including Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing international sanctions. However, connectivity remains one of the greatest challenges facing the country: its trade integration is limited by low density of settlement and economic activity, infrastructure and trade facilitation bottlenecks, and long distances to major markets; and its economy still depends on a limited number of export commodities and a narrow range of trading partners.
The government of Kazakhstan has been pursuing an agenda of economic diversification and regional integration, with a focus on trade facilitation and export promotion. In the current regional and international context, prioritising improved connectivity to integrate better into global value chains will be critical not only to ensuring the resilience of Kazakhstan’s economy, but also to expanding and developing transregional trade.
In May 2022, the OECD, with the financial support of the Republic of Kazakhstan, launched a project to improve trade connectivity in Central Asia and export promotion in Kazakhstan, comlementing the 2019 assessment of connectivity and freight challenges in the region carried out by the OECD and the International Transport Forum (ITF). A first report, taking stock of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan’s progress in the OECD Trade Facilitation Indicators (TFI) and presenting, for the first time, preliminary results for Turkmenistan, was published in December 2023.
This report summarises the analytical guidance on export promotion policies in Kazakhstan provided by the OECD in 2022 and 2023. The report complements recent OECD work on trade connectivity in Central Asia, by focusing on practical aspects of export diversification agreed upon in collaboration with the government of Kazakhstan: (i) how to develop export promotion policies for SMEs; (ii) how to design a one-stop shop for exporting SMEs; and (iii) how to improve cross-border co-operation in Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea ports.
The report comprises a macroeconomic overview chapter followed by three thematic chapters, corresponding to the three selected policy areas. Each chapter presents a detailed analysis of the current institutional and policy set-up, outlines key challenges, and provides targeted policy recommendations.