CAN THE KAZAKHSTAN ECONOMY BECOME RAW-MATERIAL INDEPENDENT
Abstract
Kazakhstan’s economic development has been rather impressive in recent years, but the country has very justified concerns about how long it can keep these dynamics up. any experts are inclined to explain the stable growth rates not by the government’s intelligent economic policy, but by the economy’s reverse motion after the slump reached its peak, and also by national currency devaluation and increasing oil prices.
The high price of raw material resources in recent years is indeed ensuring high growth rates of Kazakhstan’s GDP. But the amount of revenue coming into the country from these sources is extremely unstable and unpredictable and can hardly be viewed as a firm foundation for long-term eco-nomic growth. What is more, as many research studies indicate, this revenue may even hinder successful development to a certain extent. The Kazakhstan economy is not unique in this respect.
early all resource-rich countries are encountering the same problem—how to diversify industrial production and export so that they depend less on resource factors.1 The question economists are trying to an-swer is whether abundant resources are a boon or bane for the economy.2 At first glace, it seems strange that a country’s natural supplies of valu-able resources might be a reason for economic failures. But, as often happens in economic sys-tems, various indirect negative effects can out-weigh the direct positive effect of supplementary wealth, so in terms of economic development as a whole, the overall effect of possessing natural resources could be negative.3
Several mechanisms can be singled out that are responsible for the negative effects of a country’s natural resources on its economic development. First, the percussions of the “Dutch dis-ease.” Second, the unproductive activity of eco-nomic agents, stimulated by the high rent related to natural resources, leads to poor management of economic institutions, which, in turn, slows down
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References
See: N. Volchkova, “Prichiny syrevoi zavisimosti rossiiskoi ekonomiki: “gollandskaia bolezn” ili nedostatoch-no razvitye instituty?” p. 2, available at [http://siteresources.
orldbank.org/INTRANETTRADE/Resources/Topics/Ac-cession/438734-1109706732431/ChapteronNaturalResources_
us.doc].
Ibidem.
Ibidem.
Ibidem.
See: V. Mau, “Ekonomicheskaia politika v 2004 godu: poisk modeli konsolidatsii rosta,” Voprosy ekonomiki,No. 1, 2005.
See: N. Volchkova, op. cit.
See: Report of the National Bank “Balance of Payments and Foreign Debt of the Republic of Kazakhstan,” Janu-ary 2007 [http://www.nationalbank.kz/?docid=626&uid=080CABD1-802C-E8FB-3D60D6426DE661FC].
See: A. Esentugelov, “Rekomendatsii po dolgosrochnoi strategii upravleniia dokhodami ot dobyvaiushchei promy-shlennosti,” in: Collection of Reports “Kazakhstanskaia neft—shans dlia razvitiia,” Kazakhstan Revenue Watch, Almaty,2006, p. 54.
See: A. Esentugelov, op. cit., p. 59.
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