By Birgit Brauer (03/19/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The devaluation of the Kazakh tenge on Feb. 11, dubbed Black Tuesday, has further eroded the little trust people have had in the National Bank of Kazakhstan and the country's financial system. The news came as an unpleasant surprise for many Kazakhstanis who had believed the repeated assurances of the National Bank that there would be no devaluation. Even western financial analysts, who had anticipated the move, were taken aback by the scale of the devaluation.
By Richard Weitz (the 03/05/2014 of the CACI Analyst)
In his annual State of the Nation address on January 17, President Nursultan Nazarbayev reaffirmed the vision of stable economic development found in the Kazakhstan-2050 national development strategy, while adding important details and refinements. He and the Foreign Ministry have since clarified the international dimensions of the strategy. Nazarbayev and other experts acknowledge the economic and other challenges in transforming Kazakhstan into one of the world’s 30 most developed countries, but can point to Kazakhstan’s exceptional past performance as an indicator of its future potential.
The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.
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