The volume of direct Arab investments in the mining industry of Kazakhstan amounted to only $48.6 million in January-September 2018, down by 51.1% YoY.
The results of two months of 2019 show that the volume of production in the mining industry reached 2.5 trillion tenge, with an annual growth of 12.9% (however, the industrial production index, which showed inflation-adjusted growth, was only 106.3%). In 2018, for the same period, products worth 2.2 billion tenge were manufactured (the index was 105.5%).
The mining industry remains the key in the domestic industry, as this year its share is 57.2% (in 2018 – 53.4%).
Financing of this industry by foreign investors is actively developing. Thus, in the three quarters of 2018, the gross volume of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the mining industry amounted to $9.7 billion, up by 18.3% YoY.
At the end of September 2018, the largest amount of investment was from the Netherlands: $54.6 billion (+1.6%). The share of FDI from the country is the largest – 45.3%. The United States is in the second place: the amount of investment is $29.1 billion. The third leader in investing in the mining industry of Kazakhstan is France with $13.4 billion.
The attractiveness of the mining industry of Kazakhstan was noticed not only by the states of Europe and America, but also by Arab countries. An important event in the industry was that Qatar Mining, a Qatar state-owned mining company, was planning to implement an investment project for the extraction of gold and copper in Kazakhstan. Capital expenditures can range from $10 to $50 million.
Overall, FDI from Arab countries has been declining in recent years. In January-September 2018, the volume of Arab investments amounted to only $48.6 million (the share of all FDI in the country is only 0.3%), down by 51.1% YoY. A major investor among Arab countries is still the UAE with FDI at $34.7 million.
Perhaps investment from Qatar will be able to rectify the situation by increasing the volume of FDI from Arab countries.
However, as of late September 2018, direct investment from Qatar totaled $38.6 million, down by 17.1%. (Trend/Ukrainian metal)