The country has confirmed its role as a key investment center in Central Asia
Kazakhstan has become the main investment hub and leading capital donor in Central Asia, gathering an impressive $9.4 billion in mutual investments, as reported by Zakon.kz.
According to the latest "Monitoring of Mutual Investments" (MMI) from the Eurasian Development Bank, the republic not only accounted for over a third of the capital growth in the region but also ranked second after Russia in the volume of exported investments.
Investment activity in Eurasia demonstrates unusual stability: by mid-2025, the volume of accumulated foreign direct investments (FDI) is expected to reach a record $48.4 billion, despite a global downturn projected at minus 11% in 2024.
Private business has become the main driver of growth: its share has increased to 72%, while the total volume of FDI amounted to $34.7 billion.
Kazakhstan as an industrial magnet
The growth rate of the republic is nearly twice the regional average. While the overall dynamics of mutual investments in Eurasia stood at 6.4%, the accumulated investments in the Kazakh economy increased by 11.2% by the end of the first half of 2025.
Kazakhstan attracted $9,415 million in investments from regional partners, second only to Uzbekistan, which gathered $10.7 billion (22.3% of the total in the region).
The capital growth in Kazakh projects amounted to nearly $1 billion, which accounts for over a third of the total growth of mutual investments in Eurasia. The main source of capital remains Russia, whose share in the overall regional volume is 78.6%. A significant portion of the total Russian investments ($37,991 million) is directed specifically to Kazakhstan.
Moving away from the "oil needle"
The main conclusion of the report was a significant change in the structure of investments. In 2024-2025, Kazakhstan is actively replacing raw capital with industrial capital.
The EDB recorded the following results:
- The manufacturing industry confidently leads with an inflow of $0.84 billion, while the agro-industrial complex demonstrated growth of $0.34 billion.
- The raw materials sector saw a noticeable decrease in accumulated FDI by $0.5 billion.
Thus, Kazakhstan is actively increasing the inflow of investments into industrial projects. Over one and a half years, the share of the manufacturing sector in the structure of attracted accumulated investments has risen from 16% to 23%, while the share of the raw materials sector has decreased from 50% to 39%.
As a result, the republic confidently occupies the position of the second-largest capital donor in the region after Russia, directing $3,249 million into the economies of its neighbors. The main directions for Kazakh investments include Russia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.
Kazakhstan, together with Russia and Azerbaijan, is laying the foundations for investment activity, with these three countries accounting for about 60% of all mutual investments.
The analysis of the MMI by the EDB showed a significant change in the investment model. For the first time in the history of monitoring, investments in new enterprises ("from scratch," greenfield projects) dominate the region, with their share reaching 40%, while the share of "buy and expand" projects (brownfield) has decreased to 39%.
Overall, investment flows in the subcontinent are increasingly shifting towards Central Asia.
By mid-2025, intra-regional investments reached $1.3 billion, increasing by 42% compared to 2023 and nearly three times relative to the level of 2016.
About 80% of all intra-regional investments are concentrated in sectors such as construction, manufacturing, and the financial sector, indicating a transition of the region from a raw material model to a more diversified one.
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