Publications

I. Why renewable energy?

Renewable energy development has recently become hot topic in Kazakhstan that is actively being discussed among market existing and potential participants, relevant state bodies including the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan (the “MoE”), international development institutions and other stakeholders.

Kazakhstan has high ambitions in China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI) as it is geographically an ideal junction between China and the west. There may, however, be some roadblocks for the BRI’s projects in Kazakhstan. It is therefore important to examine past experiences in order to be able to predict what legal challenges may await Chinese investors when they engage in business with Kazakhstan.

On 29 July 2018 several Federals Laws were signed off amending the Federal Law 'On Currency Regulation and Currency Control' as follows:

Modeled on the Dubai International Financial Centre, the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) was officially launched on the 5th July this year, established with the aim of bridging the gap between the world’s major financial centers and a regional gateway for capital and investments.

From 2000, global policy, documentation and software on international taxation have been developed and many countries have joined to the implementation of Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Package. In order to effective implementation, Inclusive framework of four minimum standards of BEPS package and the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, a multilateral framework is implemented. Over 100 countries are members of these international taxation initiatives which means many countries are proactive on international taxation matters and being a part of it.

Kazakhstan authorities have come to recognize that they cannot fi nance the necessary investments in public infrastructure from current budgets and that a major part of future fi nancing must fl ow from the private sector.

New Law on National Payment System, dated 31 May 2017, shall become effective from 1 January 2018. The importance of the new law is an integrated payment system launch between the Central Bank, commercial banks, legal entities, other financial institutions and individual customers.

As the Central Asia’s largest and richest country, Kazakhstan has a lot of natural advantages for the development of renewables, including 3,000 hours of solar radiation a year and the average annual wind speed of nine meters per second in some parts of the country.

Insurance functions as a tool to optimize financing process of recovery of the resources lost as a result of random events and by this insurance considerably decreases financial load to the budget of the state.

On 14 April 2018, the changes to the Federal Law 'On Currency Regulation and Currency Control' (the 'Currency Regulation Law') and the Code of the Russian Federation 'On Administrative Offenses' introduced by Federal Law No. 64-FZ dated 3 April 2018 became effective, which provide for the obligation of Russian residents to repatriate to their accounts in Russian banks funds granted to non-residents under loan agreements and liability for a failure to perform this obligation.

On 21 April 2018, the Instruction of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation No. 4561-u dated October 2017, which establishes a new procedure for qualifying foreign financial instruments that have been assigned with the security identification code (number) (ISIN code) and the international classification code of financial instruments (CFI code), as securities ('Procedure').

As the Central Asia’s largest and richest country, with a Muslim-majority population of around 18 million people, Kazakhstan wants its local Islamic banking industry, as an alternative source of capital for SMEs, to reach 3-5% of its total banking assets by 2020 from 0.08% in 2015.