ASTANA, Kazakhstan, May 2. The Astana International Financial Center (AIFC) has helped attract more than $11 billion in investment to the country since its launch, said AIFC Governor Renat Bekturov, Trend reports.
He made the remark during a meeting with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
"Since its launch, the financial center has helped attract more than $11 billion in investment into the country (including $3.5 billion in 2023 and the first 3 months of this year), exceeding the original target set by 2025," he said.
According to him, the AIFC registered a record number of new participants in 2023, totaling more than 670 companies from 78 countries.
"In 2023 and the first three months of this year, the center's participants paid 48.7 billion tenge (about $109.7 million) in taxes to the country's budget. "The dispute resolution institutions represented by the AIFC Court and the International Arbitration Center are functioning successfully, having examined 767 commercial cases in 2023," Bekturov said.
Tokayev, in turn, outlined a number of urgent tasks for the financial center's continued development. In particular, he noted the AIFC's important role in attracting green funding for the region and the development of the Middle Corridor. The AIFC Green Finance Center supported the issuance of more than 60 percent of green bonds and loans in the country. In the jurisdiction of the financial center, joint ventures operate within the framework of the Middle Corridor project in the financial center's jurisdiction.
Tokayev also noted that government agencies and supervising financial institutions need to consolidate efforts to attract investment into Kazakhstan's economy by actively using the AIFC infrastructure to conclude transactions.
Meanwhile, the volume of investments in Kazakhstan's fixed capital increased by 13.7 percent and amounted to $39.5 billion in 2023.
Kazakhstan plans to implement 326 investment projects in 2024. These investment projects will cost a total of 3.8 trillion tenge (about $8.5 billion).