New Kazakh privatisation programme approved

Kazakh privatisation: Shares in 65 of Kazakhstan’s largest national companies currently owned by Samruk Kazyna, Baieterek and KazAgro are to be put up for sale this year after Kazakhstan’a Parliament approved a new privatisation programme late last month.
A total of 173 subsidiaries and affiliates controlled by Samruk Kazyna fund were earmarked for privatisation under the revised programme. “We hope that the central state and local executive bodies will be primarily focused on the development of competition and support of private capital during the next three years,” Minister of National Economy Yerbolat Dossayev said, adding that plans are now under way create a level playing field for investors looking to acquire assets.
Large-scale privatisation was going to be the government’s top priority until the end of the decade, he stressed, with assets  to be sold either by auction, by direct negotiation,  or by ‘Dutch auction’ where a high opening asking price is gradually reduced. The government plans to develop the nascent Astana International Finance Centre in time for it to oversee a number of the privatisation programme’s IPOs by the beginning of 2018.