Kazakhstan is a country of contrasts, with no exaggeration: desperate poverty neighbors with arrogant wealth, economic growth is accompanied by decline of social sphere and expansion of state control, and tolerance abuts discrimination. Such is the set of topics in focus of Kazakhstani blogosphere this week.

Eilide, a blogger living in Armenia but closely watching the developments in Kazakhstan, wonders if everything is really as good in Kazakhstan as some of her country's experts describe:

“They praise institutional development, stock market and financial sphere on the whole. A nice picture of rich and prosperous country. But there is crisis in banking sector, stock market is still very weak and most pension funds show low profitability. Or am I missing something?”, she asks [ru].

Although financial and banking sector do indeed demonstrate vesible sustainability in comparison with other CIS countries, expansion of the state raises serious concerns of the observers, especially after amendments in the subsoil legislation that had been introduced last year, giving the government an exceptional right to unilaterally cancel contracts with the foreign investors that work in the sphere of extraction of natural resources. (more…)

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