Harvard graduate: The creation of AIFC is closely linked to the anti-crisis strategy

The AIFC creation initiative is closely related to the anti-crisis strategy of Kazakhstan – it became a kind of response to the external difficulties in economy that the country and the Eurasian region as a whole experienced in 2014-2015. This opinion was expressed to the StanRadar.com website by Baurzhan Bektemirov, Chief Economist of the Astana International Financial Centre.

Baurzhan Bektemirov is one of the few Kazakhstanis who received education at Harvard at the expenses of the university. He witnessed the Facebook development since its inception when only Harvard students used the platform.

According to Baurzhan Bektemirov, the AIFC aims to develop the country’s banking and non-banking sector.

“On the one hand, the purpose of the AIFC creation is the development and support of the banking sector, which is currently experiencing a difficult time. On the other hand, additionally to this work, the AIFC aims to develop the non-banking sector, develop new financial instruments, new levers for investment, for economy support and for sustainable growth in the future”, Bektemirov explained.

The expert noted that the AIFC does not compete with the leading stock exchanges of the EAEU, as the Moscow Stock Exchange but rather complements them.

“It is not a competition between Moscow and Astana but an additional platform that will cover that part of the market, which the Moscow Stock Exchange is currently unavailable to cover. We are talking about small and medium-sized companies for which access to the Moscow platform is too expensive … In fact, one of the goals of the AIFC creation is to become a financial gate to the EAEU”, – the expert said.

Recall that the AIFC was created on the initiative of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The Constitutional Law on the AIFC creation was signed by President on December 7, 2015.