22 October 2026
At the 9th Kazakhstan Global Investment Roundtable (KGIR-2026) in Shymkent, attended by Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov and more than 500 investors from over 40 countries, 22 documents worth a total of $4.8 billion were signed. The largest cover a 1,000 MW wind farm in Kostanay region ($730 million) and a terminal at the port of Kuryk ($1 billion). For agriculture, the key item is a memorandum (preliminary agreement) with Nurym Group on a $111.1 million meat cluster in Turkestan region.
Bektenov noted that S&P has raised Kazakhstan’s rating for the first time in a decade, to “BBB” (an investment-grade assessment of the state’s creditworthiness). According to the yearbook “Agribusiness of Kazakhstan 2025” (Kazakhstan Statistics Bureau data), investment in agriculture reached a record 1,154 billion tenge (about $2.2 billion) in 2025; 66% went on machinery, equipment and transport, and 55% came from companies’ own funds.
An important detail: most of the documents are memoranda, and the financing terms for the meat cluster will be set in separate agreements. Finance remains expensive — the average interest rate on agricultural loans was 19.7% in 2025. Uzbekistan is the largest buyer of Kazakh agricultural products (almost $2 billion in 2025).
Sources: Office of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, 22 October 2026; Kazinform, 22 October 2026; “Agribusiness of Kazakhstan 2025” (ElDala.kz, data from the Statistics Bureau and National Bank of Kazakhstan).