Is the economy as strong as it looks?
Kazakhstan’s economy is developing along the lines of richer economies. The fastest growing sectors emphasize services: Trade (growing 14.3% in the first half of 2011, compared to the same period in 2010) and communications (16.5%), according to data from the national statistical agency. Construction (1.7%) still stagnates, as it has since the bursting of the real estate bubble in 2007. Vacancy rates may be high. Agriculture (1.5%) continues its 20-year decline relative to the rest of the economy. Despite the government’s “forced industrialization” program, industry (5.8%) grew less rapidly than did the economy on average. In general, although Kazakhstan is best-known as an oil exporter, it is shifting toward services and may already verge on a post-industrial era.
Despite a yearly growth rate of 6.8%, the economy may still be coping with an excess supply of buildings and equipment that arose from the real estate boom. In 2007, housing construction in Kazakhstan was eight times higher than in 2003, peaking at 490 billion tenge ($4 billion) -- 4% of the entire economy (measured as gross domestic product). The boom was most conspicuous in Almaty, where construction value was 12 times higher in 2007 than in 2003 and accounted for 30% of all housing construction in Kazakhstan. The bubble burst quickly: In 2009, housing construction decreased 39% in Kazakhstan and by more than 50% in Almaty and Astana, which had accounted for nearly two-thirds of all such construction in 2007. Kazakhstani construction began to recover slowly in 2010, when it had increased 3.4% since 2009. But in Almaty, the slump continued. In 2010, housing construction there had fallen by a fifth since 2009 and by nearly two-thirds since 2007.
Peanuts in Pavlodar
Even now, real investment -– the addition of physical capital to the economy – remains anemic. Normally, June is one of the busier months in Kazakhstan for investment in “fixed capital” – hard-to-move things used in production, such as office towers and factories. But this June, fixed-capital investment had fallen 2% since the previous June. In the city of Almaty, investment in the first half of 2011 was 2% below that of early 2010.
Growth rates for investment in fixed capital vary sharply across regions. For the oblast around Karaganda, a manufacturing and processing center, investment in the first half of 2011 was almost a fifth above that for early 2010. For West Kazakhstan, investment fell by nearly two fifths, reflecting the long-run decline of agricultural regions. One reason for such sharp fluctuations is that investment in many rural areas was small to begin with, so a change of given size looks relatively large. For example, housing construction in Pavlodar in 2010 came to only 3 billion tenge ($21 million).
Contract work tells the same dismal story but in broader terms. It totaled 166 billion tenge ($1.1 billion) in May 2011, a fall of nearly 3% from the previous May. Throughout the first half of 2011, contract work came to 711 billion tenge ($4.9 billion), down by 3% since early 2010. It was up by nearly a third in the Pavlodar region, and down by more than two-fifths in West Kazakhstan. Work in the city of Almaty had declined by more than a fifth. Most active was the Atyrau area –- oil country -- which accounted for a fourth of all contract work in the nation. Historically, the Atyrau oblast and Almaty city have each accounted for a fifth of national investment in non-financial assets. In general, Kazakhstani investment in early 2011 fell by about 5% from early 2010.
The one bright spot in construction may be for homes. Throughout Kazakhstan, home construction in the first half of this year came to 171 billion tenge ($1.2 billion), or under 2% of the national economy. The absolute amount was a fifth higher than in early 2010. Regional growth rates varied from an increase of nearly two-thirds in South Kazakhstan to a fall of two fifths in the Pavlodar oblast. In the city of Almaty, home construction was up by more than a third, to 31 billion tenge ($212 million). By June 2011, however, national homebuilding was slowing again. It was 43 billion tenge ($300 million) that month, an increase of just over 2% from the slump in the previous June.
In terms of floor space, residential construction ready for occupancy was stagnant in 2010 at 6.4 million square meters, the same as in 2009. Such construction was also at a standstill in Almaty, which (with Astana) comprises almost two-fifths of all such building in Kazakhstan. How to fully recover from the real estate bubble remains a nagging –- and unasked -– question in Kazakhstan. -- Leon Taylor, tayloralmaty@gmail.com
Notes
1. All output figures are adjusted for price changes, usually via a construction cost index.
2. Dollar conversions use the official exchange rate.
References
Statistical Agency of Kazakhstan. All data are from the agency’s Web pages at www.stat.kz . Warning: The agency’s work is unreliable. Its English is misleading, mistaking "contraction" for "contract." And it often miscalculates statistics -– for example, computing the annual change in fixed investment by dividing the 2010 estimate by the 2011 one rather than the reverse.
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