Kazakhstan Reaches 39th Place Globally in Economic Freedom

Nur-Sultan, MINA – Kazakhstan reached the 39th place out of 180 countries world-wide in terms of economic freedom, according to the Index of Economic Freedom 2020 released by the American Research Centre Heritage Foundation.

In 2020, Kazakhstan improved its’ ranking by 20 position (59th in 2019), according to a realese today.

The Heritage foundation said Kazakhstan became one of the 10 countries with the most significant dynamics in terms of improving its position in the new 2020 ranking.

This was due to noticeable positive dynamics such as fiscal sustainability, protection of property rights, efficiency of government agencies and spending, freedom of business and trade, and the efficiency of the judicial system.

While stable dynamics were noted for such indicators as freedom of investment and freedom of the financial sector.

Kazakhstan came on top compared to many neighbours in the region, such as the Russian Federation (94th place), Uzbekistan (114th place), Belarus (88th place), and Kyrgyzstan (81st).

The American Research Center The Heritage Foundation annually publishes a report on the economic freedom of the countries of the world.

The Index of Economic Freedom is a combined indicator that measures the level of economic freedom, which forms the corresponding rating.

This new achievement comes amid Kazakhstan’s celebrations of 30 years since independence.

A long journey that led the country to achieve huge landmarks, especially on the economic side, as in 2018 Kazakhstan’s GDP reached 177,9 bln Dollars from only 22,1 bln Dollars in 1998, increasing eight times.

The GDP per capita saw a rise from 1,5 Thousand USD in 1998 to 9,5 thousand USD in 2018.

Through the last decade, Kazakhstan’s government worked intensively on improving the investment and business environment in the country, leading to Kazakhstan holding the 25th place in the world in the World Bank Flagship Rating in doing business, out of 190 countries included in the global ranking.

Along with that high rating in doing business, Kazakhstan holds the 4th place worldwide in having contracts for companies and investments and ranks 22 globally in terms of starting a business, with many opportunities and facilities offered for new companies and investments.

Kazakhstan’s investment environment and all its’ facilities helped the country attract and grow the Foreign Direct Investment by large numbers since 2015.

While FDI in Kazakhstan recorded 15.1 bn Us dollars in 2015, the Kazakh economy kept a remarkable growth reaching 24.1 bn Us dollars in 2019, and a total of 340 bn Us dollars of FDI.(R/R1/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)