Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct.1
By Rashid Shirinov – Trend:
Following the results of eight months of 2018, chemical production in Kazakhstan stood at 248.3 billion tenge, Energyprom.kz reported.
In monetary terms, this is 18.4 percent more than it was in the same period of last year, and 9.3 percent more in physical quantities. Over 30 percent of chemical production accounted for the Jambyl region of the country (79 billion tenge and an increase of 39.2 percent for the year), 14.7 percent – for Aktobe (36.5 billion tenge, 14.6 percent growth), and 13 percent – for Karaganda region (32.2 billion tenge, which is 7.9 percent less than a year ago).
It is noteworthy that chemical industry continues to develop actively in the Jambyl region. A Kazakh-Turkish investment forum has been recently held in Ankara, during which 22 commercial documents totaling $1.7 billion were signed.
Within the forum, administration of the Jambyl region and Turkish company Yildirim Holding signed a bilateral agreement on the implementation of an investment project for soda ash production in the Togyzkent village of Sarysu district of Jambyl region, the payback period of which is calculated for 7 years.
It is planned to create 300 permanent jobs within the project. At the first stage, the Turkish company intends to invest $300 million in the project. The design capacity of the plant at the initial stage is about 400,000 tons of soda ash per year, but with full satisfaction of the domestic market needs, at the second stage, it is planned to increase the design capacity to 1 million tons of soda ash per year and start export production.
Companies of the chemical industry of Kazakhstan significantly increased the production of polystyrene (2.2 times per year), additives for mortars (50.5 percent), and carbon dioxide, which is actively used in the food industry, cryosurgery and fire-fighting (21.9 percent).
For seven months of this year, the country imported chemical products worth over $3 billion, which is 9.3 percent more than last year. Exports, on the contrary, declined – there is a decline of 6.5 percent compared to the first seven months of 2017. The volume of exports amounted to $1.2 billion.
Chemical industry of Kazakhstan is based on the rich reserves of phosphorites of South and West Kazakhstan, the development of the oil and gas industry, utilization of sulfur gases of the metallurgical industry, as well as large reserves of various salts in North and South Kazakhstan.
Chemical industry is one of the main suppliers of raw materials, semi-products and materials for other sectors of the real economy of Kazakhstan: electronic industry, battery production, energy-efficient building materials, engineering, light industry, etc.