A parliamentary working group agreed on October 29 on amendments to a new bill devoted to banning so-called “LGBT-propaganda.” The deputies in the group assured that this is not a ban against “non-traditional” sexual orientation, but an effort to regulate public displays of affection and protect children. A similar law was passed in Russia in 2013, although local deputies deny any connection.
After an eight-year suspension, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, the national railway service, resumed its Almaty-Moscow connection on October 26. The trip takes around three days.
Akylzhan Baimagambetov, deputy chairman of Kazakhstan’s Central Bank, told Vlast on October 30 that local banks will maintain a 450-500 billion tenge ($850-950 million) buffer as a guarantee for their lending portfolios. Due to this measure, by April 2026, banks will need to reserve 2% of their consumer portfolio to cover future lending deterioration.
On October 28, investors flocked to buy debt issued by ForteBank, the country’s fifth-largest lender. Forte issued $400 million worth of so-called Additional Tier 1 bonds, the first such issue in Kazakhstan’s history. Investors expect to gain a 9.875% yield. Earlier in October, Uzpromstroybank issued a similar bond, becoming the first Uzbek bank to do so. According to Bloomberg, interest in AT1 bonds “shows that some investment managers are willing to turn to more esoteric borrowers from previously unexplored regions of the world to pick up additional yield.”
After the latest round of Western sanctions, Russian oil company Lukoil said on October 27 that it would sell its foreign assets. The move could affect Lukoil’s stakes in oil extraction and transport projects in Kazakhstan: the company owns 5% in Tengizchevroil, 13.5% in Karachaganak Petroleum Operating, and 12.5% in Caspian Pipeline Consortium. In 2023, Lukoil paid national oil company Kazmunaigas $200 million to acquire a 50% stake in Kalamkas-sea and Khazar offshore fields in the Caspian Sea.
On October 28, Kazakhstan’s government said that it is not considering purchasing Lukoil’s assets in the country. On October 30, Cyprus-registered oil trader Gunvor offered to buy Austria-registered Lukoil International GmbH, which owns the Tengizchevroil and CPC stakes in Kazakhstan.
Kairat Maksutov, the chairman of state-owned utility Samruk Energy, said at a government briefing on October 28 that gas turbines are being readied at Almaty’s CHP-2 and CHP-3, the two main combined heat and power plants in Kazakhstan’s largest city, and will become fully operational between September and December 2026. Almaty was listed among the cities with the highest air pollution in the world this week. [Read more here.]
Deputy Prime Minister Iran Sharkhan said on October 29 that the government had granted permission to subsoil users to exploit industrial waste sites for raw materials, including those that lie close to populated areas. According to Sharkhan, there are around 1,700 industrial waste sites across Kazakhstan, containing around 55 billion tons of waste.
Workers at MunaiSpetsSnab, a transport company, as well as Akadi Holding and AV Construction, went on strike on October 28, citing violations of labor rights and requesting better working conditions. The day after, national oil and gas company Kazmunaigas said that it had reached an agreement with MunaiSpetsSnab, marking the end of the strike.
Yerzhan Babakumarov, the former deputy mayor of Almaty, was killed in a fight on October 29. Babakumarov previously served in the Presidential Administration and in government positions. He served as Bakytzhan Sagintayev’s deputy, while he was mayor between 2019-2022.
On October 27, a court in Bishkek declared the publications Kloop, Temirov Live, and Ait Ait Dese “extremist,” in what Gulnoza Said, the Europe and Central Asia coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, called “a shocking and desperate attempt to stifle anticorruption reporting.”
Interpol said on October 31 that it rejected a request from Kyrgyz authorities to issue an international warrant against investigative journalist Rinat Tuhvatshin, OCCRP reported. Tuhvatshin is a co-founder of Kloop, an independent media outlet that has seen several of its journalists being jailed in the past few months. Independent Kyrgyzstan-based media have been under pressure since President Sadyr Japarov took office in 2020.
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