The article analyzes the trends in economic cooperation between Kazakhstan and the four states of post-Soviet Central Asia in the main areas, as well as the current situation. Mutual trade in goods and services, investment cooperation and joint entrepreneurship are considered. The analysis carried out demonstrates the unevenness of economic ties with individual states of the region, their lower intensity compared to aggregate indicators in the long term, but significant acceleration over the past decade, which makes it possible to predict an increase in the intensity of cooperation in the medium term.
Five full years of the functioning of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) provide an opportunity to highlight the main trends of cooperation under this association and to summarize some of their results. The article discusses the trends and results of Kazakhstan’s foreign economic cooperation with the EAEU countries in the main areas, including mutual trade, mutual investments, as well as some others. The analysis revealed that in most areas of cooperation between Kazakhstan and the EAEU countries during the period of the union’s existence, leading dynamics were observed, which indicates the positive results for the national economy of the first five years of operation as part of the integration association.
Depreciation of the national currency — economies with predominantly raw material exports included — is reflected not only in the indicators of the external sector, but also in the sphere of public finance, in particular the formation of budget revenues. In Kazakhstan, the impact of devaluation on the formationof the state budget is specific, associated with the presence of a special source of its income in the form of transfers from the sovereign wealth fund (National Fund). During the period of low oil prices, revenues to the National Fund from the oil sector decreased, and its accelerated spending began, which brought to the forefront investment income as one of the main source of its receipts. The high investment income in the Kazakh currency secures relative stability of the fund’s volume and transfers to the budget, but this income is largely formed due to the exchange rate factor. The weakening of the Kazakhstani tenge against hard currencies placed as the main part of the fund’s assets ensures an increase in the tenge investment income through their revaluation. The growth of investment income, in turn, produces increased volumes of transfers to the budget. Thus, the devaluation of the tenge has become a factor of stability in the formation of state budget revenues.
The Kazakhstani economy is characterized by a high export orientation, which predetermines the significant role of foreign trade in the formation of macroeconomic trends. For a long period, foreign trade was one of the main drivers of economic development of Kazakhstan, but recently its role has been decreasing against the background of a reduction in the trade surplus consequently to a decrease in export volumes due to oil prices decline, as well as outstripping growth of import. The contraction in the trade surplus puts pressure on the current account of the balance of payments and generates a number of problems in key areas of the economy. The factors that determine the deterioration of the situation in the country’s foreign trade, with a high degree of probability, will continue to operate in the medium term, which may lead to a further complication of the processes of socio-economic development.
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