Kazakhstan's Emerging Middle Class
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Kazakhstan’s Emerging Middle Class John C.K. Daly SILK ROAD PAPER March 2008 Kazakhstan’s Emerging Middle Class John C. K. Daly © Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program – A Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center Johns Hopkins University-SAIS, 1619 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036 Institute for Security and Development Policy, V. Finnbodav. 2, Stockholm-Nacka 13130, Sweden www.silkroadstudies.org "Kazakhstan’s Emerging Middle Class" is a Silk Road Paper published by the Central Asia- Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program. The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program is a joint transatlantic independent research and policy center. The Silk Road Papers Series is the Joint Center’s Series of Occasional Papers. The Joint Center has offices in Washington and Stockholm and is affiliated with the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University and the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy. It is the first Institution of its kind in Europe and North America, and is today firmly established as a leading research and policy center, serving a large and diverse community of analysts, scholars, policy-watchers, business leaders and journalists. The Joint Center aims to be at the forefront of research on issues of conflict, security, and development in the region. Through its applied research, publications, research cooperation, public lectures and seminars, it aspires to function as a focal point for academic, policy, and public discussion regarding the region. © Central Asia – Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, 2008 ISBN: 978-91-85937-14-1 Printed in Singapore Distributed in North America by: The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies 1619 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036 Tel. +1-202-663-7723; Fax. +1-202-663-7785 E-mail: [email protected] Distributed in Europe by: The Silk Road Studies Program Institute for Security and Development Policy Västra Finnbodavägen 2, 131 30 Stockholm-Nacka Sweden Email: [email protected] Editorial correspondence should be addressed to Svante E. Cornell, Research and Publications Director, at either of the addresses above (preferably by email). Table of Contents Executive Summary ............................................................................................ 5 Kazakhstan’s Sudden Prosperity ...................................................................... 13 Who are the Kazakh “Middle Class?” ............................................................. 16 Statistics ............................................................................................................ 20 Post-Soviet Kazakhstan .................................................................................... 26 Housing ................................................................................................................................. 30 Transportation ........................................................................................................................ 33 Education ............................................................................................................................... 36 Tourism ................................................................................................................................. 45 Communications, Computers & Internet ................................................................................ 48 Diet ....................................................................................................................................... 54 Fashion .................................................................................................................................. 54 Lifestyle ................................................................................................................................. 54 Politics .................................................................................................................................... 55 Business ................................................................................................................................. 59 Politics –Parties Contend for Middle Class Support .............................................................. 63 The August 2007 Majlis Elections .......................................................................................... 69 Kazakhstan’s Continuing Financial Success ................................................... 73 Banks, Domestic And Foreign ................................................................................................ 77 Growing Pains for the Economy that Supports the Middle Class ........................................... 82 The Future .......................................................................................................... 91 Conclusions ....................................................................................................... 97 Executive Summary Kazakhstan's development as a rising petro-state from the debris of the collapse of the USSR in 1991 is Central Asia's leading success story. Unlike many nations that have recently developed their energy reserves, the rise in revenues from foreign energy sales have had a trickle-down effect in Kazakhstan, producing the embryo of a new middle class, a social development that was anathema in the USSR, whose ideology persistently sought to eradicate class distinctions. Kazakhstan, ruled since independence by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has made a cornerstone of its social policy to foster the development of an indigenous middle class, seeing it as a social and political guarantor of stability. The world’s largest landlocked country, Kazakhstan is an ethnically diverse nation – the 1999 census determined the population to be Kazakh (Qazaq) – 53.4 percent, Russian – 30 percent, Ukrainian – 3.7 percent, Uzbek – 2.5 percent, German – 2.4 percent, Tatar – 1.7 percent, Uygur – 1.4 percent and other 4.9 percent. This study charts the development of this new phenomenon in Kazakh society from the end of the USSR to the present day. The nurturing and development of this middle class, which is composed of former members of the Soviet apparat, younger professionals and newly minted businessmen, stands in contrast to events in the other post-Soviet “stans” - Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. While in the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR Kyrgyzstan was initially regarded by many Western analysts as the most reformist post-Soviet republic in moving swiftly towards Western-style political and economic infrastructures, it is in fact Kazakhstan that has emerged as the most progressive regional economic reformer, and it is unclear if its successes could be repeated elsewhere. Underpinning Kazakhstan's rise to prosperity is its immense reserves of oil and natural gas. Kazakhstan, however, shared with its fellow former Soviet 6 John C. K. Daly republics the fiscal chaos emanating in the wake of the sudden collapse of the USSR in 1991, which included hyperinflation, plummeting industrial production and, in Kazakhstan's case, an exodus of many of its most highly trained ethnic Russians. Between 1989 and 2005, Kazakhstan lost two million of its six million Russian Soviet inhabitants. Kazakhstan still retains a Russian minority of around 30 percent, the highest percentage in the region. More than 4 in 5 unemployed Kazakhs lost their livelihood in the aftermath of the Soviet economic implosion. In 1992, the first year of independence, inflation soared to 2,960 percent. Nazarbayev’s government quickly moved to stanch the flow of some of its most highly skilled population by instituting major economic reforms. The Kazakh government has subsequently used its oil revenues not only to reform the economy, but to restructure the country’s Soviet educational legacy and begin creating an educational system on a par with more economically advanced countries. Nazarbayev’s government realized that the country's future prosperity was inextricably linked to deepening commitments with Western fiscal and governmental institutions, and the Kazakh government swiftly began to implement reforms that would make the nation increasingly attractive to foreign interests, while avoiding the more severe consequences of the financial shock therapy that Western advisers inflicted on neighboring Russia. Kazakhstan's rising oil revenues have given the Kazakh government very deep pockets with which to institute its reforms. Estimates of Kazakhstan's oil-related wealth over the next two-three decades vary from $27 billion to $96 billion. Accordingly, among Kazakhstan’s “firsts” among its CIS neighbors, it was the first to pay off its debts to the International Monetary Fund in 2000 following economic reconstruction (seven years ahead of schedule), the first to obtain a favorable credit rating, the first to implement financial institutions approaching Western standards of efficiency and reliability, and the first to develop and introduce a fully-funded nationwide pension program. Besides rising oil revenues, one of the key elements in Kazakhstan’s economic success has been its ability to attract foreign investment, which in 2001-2003 surged to 13 percent of GDP and is currently running at almost ten Kazakhstan’s Emerging Middle Class 7 times the rate of its neighbors. In validating the structural reforms carried out by