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 bottlenecks, weaknesses in trade facilitation, and long distances to major markets; its economy still depends on a limited number of export commodities and a narrow range of trading partners. This report summarises the analytical guidance and capacity-building on export diversification 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 identified 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.

Eurasian economies have to become efficient more productive, job-creating, and stable. But efficiency is not the same as diversification. Governments need to worry less about the composition of exports and production and more about asset portfolios natural resources, built capital, and economic institutions.

Kazakhstan has the potential to become an economic leader in Central Asia. Relying on oil and gas alone, however, will not produce the long-run level of growth needed to meet this potential. Reforms geared to improve the business climate, enhance competitiveness, and increase private sector participation are essential. This book examines reforms to accelerate economic diversification in the country. This involves not only modernizing and using public resources in agriculture more efficiently to increase productivity, but also transitioning of manufacturing toward high-potential exports to help the country’s industrial development and create employment opportunities. Upgrading innovation of oilfield services and improving transport and logistics are important to increase participation in the global value chains.

Economic diversification remains at the top of the agenda for hundreds of regions around the world. From the single commodity economies of African countries and the Caribbean, to the many single industry regions of Europe and North America, as well as the oil and gas rich but volatile hydrocarbon economies. Economic diversification policies have been around for almost a century with varying degrees of success and failure. Economic Diversification Policies in Natural Resource Rich Economies takes a special interest in the policy experiences of a set of different countries that have extractive industries representing significant drivers of their economies and subsequently are significant contributors to government revenues. It explores twelve cases including upper-middle to high income economies such as Canada, Australia, Iceland and Norway, emerging economies such as Latin America, the GCC (Saudi and UAE), Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Russia, as well as the developing economy of Uganda. Each chapter provides a review of economic diversification experiences including policy environment, diversification strategies, desired outcomes, the role of government, and a critical evaluation of achievements. This book is suitable for those who study environmental economics, development economics and resource management.

This edition analyses how trade can contribute to economic diversification and empowerment, with a focus on eliminating extreme poverty, particularly through the effective participation of women and youth. It shows how aid for trade can contribute to that objective by addressing supply-side capacity and trade-related infrastructure constraints, including for micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises notably in rural areas.

Kazakhstan has embarked upon an ambitious reform agenda to realise its aspiration of becoming one of the top 30 global economies by 2050. The country’s economy and society have undergone deep transformations since independence.

This book explores opportunities for diversifying modern Kazakhstan's economy, which is still heavily dependent on its natural resources, as well as looking at economic opportunities for the whole Central Asian region arising from the Chinese government's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The book is comprised of four parts. Part 1 explores the first main theme of the book: development of the economy based on the resource sector with the example of Kazakhstan. Part 2 examines opportunities for diversification arising from BRI: a rise of transport and communication industries alongside the new Belt and Road economic route. Part 3 explores the view from China on the perspectives of regional development, not least the economic reasons for the launch of this programme, investments and planned effects. Part 4 discusses other internal sources for diversification of the economy in Kazakhstan based on development of local industry in the oil and gas sector, small- and medium-sized enterprises and tertiary sector of the economy. This book will be of value for students, academics, policy-makers, and practitioners focused on economic development and business in the Central Asian region, as well as those who are working on the design of instruments for economic development in their own countries.

Largely because of its vast copper reserves, Chile’s exports are highly concentrated on this low complexity product and this is often cited as a major drawback of its economic policy framework. However, its exogenous copper abundance conceals the country’s success in developing non-mineral and complex exports. This achievement is remarkable considering its remoteness from the large international economic centers, which limits its integration to global value chains. As suggested in this paper, this accomplishment reflects Chile’s strength in policy areas that foster non-mineral exports (including complex exports), making the country a role model in export diversification and complexity policies among emerging market countries.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on bloomsburycollections.com. This volume brings together new contributions from renowned academic scholars, from experts on economies in transition and from the United Nations, the European Union, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development as well as other international agencies. It aims to answer fundamental questions and spell out policy options to address the challenges for economies in transition. The volume includes comparative studies focusing on all transition economies, including Central and Eastern Europe, as well as regions such as Western Balkans and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

This report provides an independent and comparative assessment of the overall performance of Kazakhstan’s innovation system since independence, with recommendations on improving performance drawing on the experience of other OECD countries in innovation processes, systems and policies. While ...