Benefiting from a business climate that has greatly improved in recent years, the Central Asian country is a favorite destination for multinationals forced to leave Russia.
The war in Ukraine did not simply reshuffle the geopolitical cards: the Russian invasion, and the international sanctions it brought about against Moscow, forced a large number of Western companies to cease their operations in Russia. . Overnight, some of the world’s largest groups closed their doors, dismissed their employees and definitively abandoned the country of Vladimir Putin. There is no question, however, of giving up any presence in the very strategic region of Central Asia, which acts as a bridge between China and Europe. For some of these multinationals in search of local ties, Kazakhstan is then a first choice. A historic opportunity which the authorities of this immense country rich in raw materials, in full economic expansion and direct neighbor of Russia, have every intention of taking advantage of.
Kazakhstan, a new business El Dorado
At the end of July, the vice-Kazakh Foreign Minister Almas Aïdarov declared that “To date, 43 (foreign) companies are interested either in relocating their production or opening new facilities in Kazakhstan, or in transferring their headquarters for the Eurasian region to Kazakhstan “. A figure that could well be significantly higher, Almas Aïdarov estimating that more than 260 groups have already publicly stated their intention to leave the Russian market or close their offices there, while the multinationals operating in Russia have already lost nearly $60 billion last June. With therefore, for some of them, the ambition to set up in Kazakhstan, as the beer brand Carlsberg, the online platform TikTok or the Brazilian producer of electronic equipment have already done or plan to do WEG.
This sudden influx of large global groups is encouraged at the highest level of the Kazakh state, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev having explicitly asked his government to prepare as well as possible for the arrival of these foreign companies. A relocation which, however constrained it may be, can therefore rely on many assets. With 19 million inhabitants, Kazakhstan is the richest country in the Central Asian region and has greatly improved the business climate in recent years. Aiming to be among the top thirty world powers by 2030, the country rose in 2020 to 25th place among states where it is easy to do business, according to a ranking established by the World Bank. Foreign investors were not mistaken, they who invested 24 billion dollars in the Kazakh economy in 2021, a figure up by +38% compared to the previous year.
The “historic” opening of a Honeywell factory in Almaty
The latest to arrive, the American group Honeywell announced, at the end of July, the opening of its first factory in Almaty. The world leader in industrial technologies, the company, originating from the American state of North Carolina, has offices in 70 countries and more than 110 000 employees across the globe. And the choice of Honeywell’s leaders owes nothing to chance – and perhaps less than it seems at first glance to the geopolitical situation alone: present in Kazakhstan for more than 20 years, the company supports in particular the oil and gas sectors, for which it provides advanced technologies in gas production or oil refining. ” We greatly appreciate Honeywell’s contribution to the development of the oil and gas sector in Kazakhstan “, confirmed Almas Aïdarov, according to whom ” the company is our closest partner in the field of automation and artificial intelligence in the context of several oil production and refining projects “.
For his part, Uygar Doiran, president of Honeywell for Central Asia, estimated that the Almaty assembly site, “ the first of its kind to produce ICSS (Integrated Control and Safety System) technology in Kazakhstan, provides an additional basis for expanding domestic production capacity of advanced industrial automation systems in the country, while judging that this new plant would strengthen the group’s position in the region. ” This historic opening underscores our commitment to advancing our presence in Kazakhstan”further assured the leader, “ and will enable quick and easy access to advanced automation and critical safety technologies “. The icing on the cake, the American group is also said to be studying the possibility of opening its regional office in Kazakhstan.
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