Economic performance stable in 5M22

KAZAKHSTAN - In Brief 16 Jun 2022 by Alexander Kudrin

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The Kazakh Bureau of National Statistics reported that the short-term economic indicator (a monthly proxy for GDP) was up by 5.9% y-o-y in 5M22. Industrial output grew by 4.4% y-o-y over the same period. This number pointed to some deceleration both in the mining and the manufacturing, given that in 4M22, the industry as a whole was up by 4.7%. Construction, transportation and storage, agriculture, trade, communications were up by 8.9%, 8.1% 1.3%, 10.8%, and 7.2% (also y-o-y in 5M22). Investment in production capacity was up in 5M22 by 2.5% y-o-y. Retail sales grew in 5M22 by 3.3% y-o-y, while in May, the growth was stronger – by 12.9% due to the low base effect in 2021. Overall, in spite of the remaining high inflation (14.0 % y-o-y in May), the economic performance looks good, even though weekly price statistics on socially essential goods point to no disinflation. In seven days ending on June 14, it remained the same as in previous weeks, i.e., 0.4% w-o-w, as the tenge continued to weaken against the ruble to 7.85 from around 7.5 seen in the past several weeks. The ruble’s global strength looks abnormal and creates problems not for Kazakhstan alone but for Russia itself also. Note that imports from Russia accounted for 38.6% of total Kazakh imports in 4M22. Evgeny Gavrilenkov Alexander Kudrin