Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Kazakhstan rose modestly in the first half of 2025, bucking a global downturn, with investors increasingly turning to a wider variety of sectors in the oil and mineral-rich Central Asian country, government officials and international investors said in Astana on October 30 and 31.

Despite a slowing global economy and geopolitical turbulence that has disrupted investment flows worldwide, Kazakhstan continued to see strong investor interest, according to comments from senior officials.

Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov addressed the Kazakhstan Global Investment Roundtable (KGIR) in Astana on October 31, speaking of the resilience shown by his country's economy. 

“In recent years, the global market has been facing increasing fragmentation and relocation of investment flows. In this context, Kazakhstan’s economy shows resilience and potential for further growth,” he said. 

“Last year, Kazakhstan accounted for 63% of all FDI in Central Asia, and four out of five investment projects worth over $1bn in landlocked countries were located here,” the prime minister added. 

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD’s) vice president for banking Matteo Patrone talked of the global changes pushing investors to rethink where and how they allocate capital. “Around the world supply chains are shifting, new technologies are emerging, and investors are rethinking where and how to allocate capital,” he said.

Diversification gains pace

“We have already attracted $10bn in foreign direct investment in the first half of the year, up 1% from last year,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alibek Kuantyrov told journalists at a briefing in Astana on October 30. He attributed the modest growth to the high base from 2024. The government aims to reach $25bn in FDI inflows by the end of 2025. However, Kuantyrov told journalists that it has so far only achieved 40% of that annual target. 

Officials and business leaders said the structure of foreign investment in Kazakhstan has changed dramatically over the past two decades. Two decades ago, three-quarters of foreign investment flowed into oil, gas and mining, according to Kuantyrov. Today, as Kuantyrov previously said in an interview with bne IntelliNews, that share has fallen to around 35%, as investors increasingly look toward a wide range of areas including renewables, agribusiness, data centres and advanced manufacturing.

“Kazakhstan used to be dependent on upstream oil and gas projects, but now we are seeing strong investor interest in green energy, agribusiness and digital infrastructure,” said Madiyar Sultanbekov, deputy chairman of the management board of Kazakhstan’s investment agency Kazakh Invest, at the briefing alongside Kuantyrov on October 30. 

They highlighted investments such as two 1-GW renewables projects announced separately by the UAE’s Masdar and France’s TotalEnergies, as well as growing interest from German and Swedish investors in green hydrogen production. Other high-potential sectors include coal chemistry, a nascent industry leveraging Kazakhstan’s abundant coal reserves, as well as agricultural processing and manufacturing. Agribusiness has “a lot of interest right now” with several large-scale new projects under way, as do Kazakhstan’s consumer-focused sectors.

Beyond oil 

Speakers at the KGIR event said the shift reflects both government policy and the evolution of Kazakhstan’s economy. “Kazakhstan’s economy continues to evolve from traditional industries to high-value sectors such as green energy, digital infrastructure, education and logistics,” said Baurzhan Kankin, chief client officer at the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC). Kazakhstan, he added, has become a “trusted destination for long-term, sustainable investments.” 

“We’ve seen a major shift over the last decade away from oil and gas, which dominated both investment and exports, toward a more diversified set of industries,” commented Matthew J. Sagers, head of the Russian and Caspian Energy Advisory Service at S&P Global Commodity Insights. 

“As major oil projects such as Tengiz near completion, new capital is flowing into sectors that can sustain long-term growth. Investors are transforming Kazakhstan from a one-trick pony into something much larger and more diversified.” 

Kazakhstan’s growth continues under challenging global conditions. Its economy grew by 6.2% in the first nine months of 2025, according to official figures, though inflation and currency volatility remain concerns.

“Our permanent task is to maintain macroeconomic stability,” Kuantyrov told the briefing. “One challenge is inflation, imported from other countries, as well as the devaluation of the tenge against the dollar and euro … Another challenge is some geopolitical changes, and logistics issues stemming from regional conflicts that also put pressure on us. We are trying to find our best place in a complex world.” 

“We are facing some critical moments of global and regional turbulence, testing our resilience. These testing times are marked by economic shifts, geopolitical changes and social complexity,” said David Manzini, president for Russia and the CIS at PepsiCo, a long-term investor in Kazakhstan, at the KGIR. At the same time, however, Kazakhstan is increasing its regional influence. 

Middle Corridor

Kazakhstan’s geographic position between China and Europe has made it a key beneficiary of trade rerouting through the Middle Corridor – a trans-Caspian route increasingly used as an alternative to Russian transit lines since the start of the Ukraine war and imposition of reciprocal sanctions.

“The Middle Corridor is rapidly developing and plays a strategic role for Kazakhstan and the entire region, with infrastructure projects along the route including those with the presence of foreign investors and international financial institutions,” Bektenov told delegates. 

Jérôme Boyet, managing director for Western and Central Asia at French multinational rail transport systems manufacturer Alstom, also noted that the Middle Corridor “is becoming an area for investment … Transit between China and Europe is rising sharply, and Kazakhstan’s infrastructure gives it a logical role in connecting the two markets. Speed and digital integration will be critical to making the route competitive.”

He commented on the positioning of Kazakhstan geographically, between China and Europe — the world’s two largest consumer markets. “There has been a drastic increase in transit between China and Europe, with a lot more containerised goods. Kazakhstan has a logical place in that and must play a role in transit between the two blocs; if not, somebody else will.” 

Nurzhan Marabayev, director general of DARYN Partners, involved in developing the Port of Kuryk on the Caspian Sea with state railway company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ), said transshipment volumes via the port have increased 10-fold in recent years. “Kazakhstan is a very important transit hub, but also an important supplier of critical raw materials for the global energy transition,” he said. “How can you get those to markets? The answer is the Middle Corridor.” 

Scaling up 

It’s also noticeable that foreign investors are raising the scale of their investments into Kazakhstan. Rather than single factories, they see the country as a location for clusters of factories or hubs serving the wider region. Again, this is facilitated by the improved transport links across Eurasia, as well as the steadily increasing populations and prosperity of Kazakhstan and Central Asia. 

Among the investors at the conference, Alexander Luft, managing partner of Stadler CIS, said it was a “strategic choice” to invest in Kazakhstan. “We came not just to build railway cars, but we would like to have a tech hub here with a capacity of 80 cars per year,” he said.

He sees the investment as having a “multiplier effect for the entire economy”, pointing out that Stadler’s "production is a core for a new industrial infrastructure”, with a components cluster growing up to serve the main plant. On top of that Stadler offers complete service provision for equipment for 30 years, which is also leading to the development of adjacent sectors.

In the agribusiness sector, Yu Yufei, vice chairman of Dalian Hesheng Holding Group, said that “Kazakhstan has great potential in the agriculture sector”. The company is currently in the process of building a wheat processing plant in Kazakhstan, which is due to be completed in 2Q26. “We won’t confine [ourselves] to this project only, we can create the entire production line,” You said. 

Another new investor is Roca Group, a Barcelona-based producer of bathroom products, which is preparing to build a factory in Kazakhstan’s Kyzlyorda region. This, the company’s president for the CIS region, Daniel Hernández, told bne IntelliNews on the sidelines of the conference, will serve as a hub to supply Central Asia and Azerbaijan. 

As international companies scale up their commitments — moving from single projects to integrated clusters and regional hubs — Kazakhstan is intensifying its efforts to attract foreign investors and maintain FDI through the global downturn. Despite inflationary pressures and geopolitical turbulence, it continues to see inflows of large-scale, long-term investments.