Kazakhstan, as other natural resource-rich countries, faces a difficult task of diversifying its economy and avoiding the resource curse. Indeed, the share of natural resources rents in GDP, which is the sum of oil, natural gas, coal, mineral, and forest rents, in Kazakhstan was 38.2... MORE

With the signing of a new friendship and cooperation treaty at a bilateral summit in Yekaterinburg on November 11, Russia and Kazakhstan aimed to move their relations to a new phase, but tensions related to regional integration evidently remain. Two weeks earlier in Minsk, Kazakhstani... MORE

On November 1, the fourth session of the Kazakhstani-Kyrgyzstani Intergovernmental Council met in Bishkek. The meeting sought to realize the agenda articulated by Kazakhstani Prime Minister Serik Akhmetov, who noted “the mutual desire of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to address urgent issues on water and the... MORE

At the October 24 summit of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in Minsk, Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev suggested that Turkey may wish to join the Custom Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. According to Nazarbayev, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reached out to him... MORE

There is a widespread perception among the foreign business community in China that there has been a concerted crackdown on multinational companies since China’s new government took power in March. There have been many headline-grabbing cases in which multi-national corporations (MNCs) faced legal or regulatory... MORE

On Saturday, November 9, China will begin a major meeting on economic policy, expected to produce major statements of intent for reform. The outcomes of this meeting will be mainly economic policies, but as a headline statement about the direction of China under the Fifth-Generation... MORE

On October 24 and 25, Belarus hosted two high-level meetings of heads of state of the Supreme Economic Council of the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEc) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). While these gatherings enabled their participants to discuss a wide range of issues... MORE

According to the Legatum Global Prosperity Index (LGPI), Belarus is a country with average prosperity: it is 58th out of 142 countries for which the index in question has been just published (www.svaboda.org/content/article/25150395.html?). Much like on the Human Development Index, according to the LGPI ranking,... MORE

Inaugurated on October 29, 2013, the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey, Istanbul’s undersea Marmaray railway tunnel is the world’s first connecting two continents and is designed to withstand earthquakes up to 9.0 on the Richter scale. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep... MORE

The recent detention of senior executives of the China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has highlighted a major question about China’s economic plans: Whether the Xi Jinping-Li Keqiang administration has finally decided to restructure the 110 or so yangqi, or state-owned enterprise (SOE) groupings. Li has... MORE