Kazakhstan sees decline in foreign bank investments for second consecutive year

In the period from January to October 2019, fixed-asset investment, largely bank loans, stood at 227.3 billion tenge, with a drastic decline by 64.4% for the first times in years.

This year bank loans’ share in capital investments has equalled 2.3%, falling from 7.4%, while fixed-asset investments through foreign bank loans have totalled at 9.3 billion tenge, decreasing by 58.7% compared to January-October 2018. Foreign bank investments are on the decline for the second consecutive year.

The share of investment acquired through foreign bank loans has been less than 5% of the total investment for the second year in a row, growing from 3.5% to 4.1% in the last year, while that of the total fixed-asset investment has been less than 0.1% this year, against 0.3% and 1.1% in previous years.

This year, foreign bank investment has largely fallen on the manufacturing sector: 7.7 billion tenge (−65.9% within the year), including 7.5 billion tenge on the non-metal mineral products manufacturing sector, and another 157.5 million tenge (−99.3% per year) on the production of coke and oil products.

Foreign banks’ share in investments through all bank loans has seen a yearly increase from 4.8% to 10.3% in the industry, particularly in the manufacturing industry - from 5.3% to 16.5%.

In non-metallic mineral product output foreign banks have represented more than half of investments obtained through loans - 55.6%, while in coke and oil products their share have been 3.3% (a year earlier - 5.8%).

The remaining 1.6 billion tenge account for transport and storage, 2.4% of the total investment made through bank loans in the industry.

Kyzylorda region represents nearly 81% of the total investments through foreign banks, 7.5 billion tenge (production of non-metallic mineral products). Karaganda and Atyrau regions represent 17.5% (1.6 billion tenge) and 1.7%, respectively.

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