«Currency regulation and control» round table took place in Atyrau

The purpose of the round table was explaining to businessmen the changes in the legislation and detailed studying of possibility of cooperation between Kazakhstan and Canadian business in the field of oil and gas industry.

CERBA Canadian-Kazakhstan business association jointly with Petrocouncil.kz (the council for development of strategic partnerships founded under auspices of “Atameken” national chamber of entrepreneurs and “Kazenergy” Association) have arranged this event. The most excellent and informative speeches were prepared by Norman Storm – chairman of CERBA Kazakhstan, Assylbek Dzhakiyev – Petrocouncil.kz director, Yernar Smanov – head of department for currency control of the Republic of Kazakhstan national bank and Kanat Skakov – DENTONS partner.

Yernar Smanov – head of department for currency control of the Republic of Kazakhstan national bank – stated, that from the viewpoint of dedollarization the changes in the legislation absolutely have not bring any effect yet. The case is that new requirements to settlements of foreign organizations’ branches with Kazakhstan residents will apply only to contracts signed after the 1st of July. Operating branches and representative offices of foreign organizations in Kazakhstan already have valid agreements signed long before the 1st of July 2019 in all basic area of their activity. Consequently until these agreements expire the settlements thereunder will be carried out under previous terms.

The change important to domestic entrepreneurs is that now the risks of currency volatility will be shifted from domestic entrepreneurs to foreign companies. In case tenge (KZT) is depreciated the risk will be with foreign company, since all settlements will be carried out in tenge. But the expert does not know how such changes will impact investment attractiveness of Kazakhstan, in particular for local content development in production.