Foreign Investments in Kazakhstan Shift to Processing and New Sectors
Change in Investment Structure
According to a report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, the new investment cycle in the country is associated with economic diversification and a gradual transition from an extractive model to the development of industrial potential. The share of manufacturing in the total volume of foreign investments increased from 14.2% in 2019 to 21.3% in 2025.
Investments in the chemical industry grew from $98.8 million to $1.2 billion. In the communications sector, the figure increased from $105 million to $1.3 billion. The volume of investments in financial and insurance activities reached $4.2 billion, up from $1 billion in 2019. The largest investors remain Russia, China, the USA, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and France; at the same time, participation from Middle Eastern and Asian countries has increased. Investments from the United Arab Emirates rose from $158.2 million to $1.6 billion, from Qatar to $1.3 billion, and from Singapore to $1.4 billion.
Investment Agreements and Agro-Industrial Complex
In 2021, Kazakhstan introduced investment agreements for large projects. The mechanism applies to initiatives costing from 7.5 million monthly calculation indices, or more than 32 billion tenge. The document establishes the obligations of the state and the investor, conditions for the implementation of the project, and the stability of key conditions throughout the investment cycle. About 70 such agreements have been concluded in the country.
In the agro-industrial complex, more than 100 projects are being implemented, from the creation of farms to the deep processing of agricultural raw materials. Among the foreign participants mentioned are Dalian Hesheng Holdings, Fufeng Group, and Tiryaki Agro. Solico Group from the Arab region is implementing a cheese production project in Almaty Region. The food industry also includes companies such as Mars, Carlsberg, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola.
Industry, Energy, and Digital Infrastructure
In the pharmaceutical sector, agreements have been concluded on eight large projects this year. Kazakhstan imports more than 80% of pharmaceutical products; the goal is to increase the share of domestic production to 50% of the market. In the mining and metallurgical complex in Balkhash, the Qazaq Smelter copper smelting plant, worth 750 billion tenge, is planned. The Ertis hydrometallurgical plant in Pavlodar Region will receive $600 million in investments and will process gold concentrates using autoclave oxidation. In Karaganda Region, the construction of a metallurgical coke plant with a capacity of 1 million tons per year has been agreed.
In Ekibastuz, a cluster of data processing centers, cloud services, and artificial intelligence infrastructure is being created with the participation of Firebird and NVIDIA. The package of agreements envisages investments of up to $10 billion and the possibility of placing up to 100,000 GPUs. Kazakhtelecom has constructed about 14,400 km of fiber-optic lines in 828 rural settlements. Together with AzerTelecom International, it is laying a communication line along the bottom of the Caspian Sea, approximately 370 km long, between Aktau and Sumgait.
Volume of New Projects
According to UN ESCAP, Kazakhstan attracted $19 billion in new projects in 2025, a 266% increase from the previous year. The country accounted for nearly 89% of all intra-regional direct investments in new projects in Northern and Central Asia. More than 3,500 initiatives with a total value of about 106 trillion tenge are registered on the National Digital Investment Platform. Through the system, government bodies and national companies accompany projects and monitor their implementation.
