Kazakhstan macro: Economic growth moderates in the aftermath of last year’s overheating
Recent economic statistics show that Kazakhstan’s economy resumed growing after the sharp drop in January caused by the oil export disruption due to the damage at the CPC sea oil terminal. However, January’s shock will still have some impact on overall growth in 2026, which will be slower than last year’s overheated growth rate. The slowdown also hit wholesale trade, which grew just 3.2% y-o-y in January compared to a 9.5% increase for all of 2025. Conditions improved in the succeeding months, with wholesale trade rising 5.9% y-o-y in the first four months of 2026, pointing to accelerating growth after the January shock. The transportation sector was also affected by the shock, and its performance gradually improved in the months that followed.
The Bureau of Economic Statistics reported that the economic situation in general continued to improve in April as the short-term indicator, which measures aggregate activity in the industrial, agriculture, construction, transportation, trade, and IT/communication sectors, was up by 4.2% y-o-y in 4M26. In 1Q26, it grew by 2.5% y-o-y, while it was down by 1.8% y-o-y in January. However, compared to last year, economic growth in 4M24 slowed.
We expect this moderation to continue across several key sectors, such as retail sales, for the rest of the year, as the NBK won’t rush to cut the key rate, not least because inflation remained elevated in April. It decelerated y-o-y due to a base effect but accelerated on a m-o-m basis (to 0.8% from 0.6% m-o-m in March). Currently, we expect retail sales to expand by about 4.5% to 5.0% this year, while GDP growth could moderate to about 5.0%.
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