Kazakhstan’s economy shrinks 1.8%

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Friday that the economy is developing in challenging conditions since the beginning of the year due to the COVID-19 disease. Report informs citing the National Post newspaper.

Kazakhstan, which imposed a new lockdown on July 5, has confirmed almost 55,000 COVID-19 infections, including 264 deaths. The number of new cases rose on Thursday to a daily record of 1,962 before declining to 1,726 on Friday.

Tokayev also ordered the cabinet to resuscitate the economy, which shrank 1.8% year-on-year in January-June as the first lockdown hit the services area in March-May and the key oil and gas sector suffered from a crude price drop.
Tokayev said the government would allocate an additional 150 billion tenge ($363 million) towards combating the COVID-19 outbreak and urged the central bank to lower its inflation target to 8.0-8.5% from 9.0-11.0% this year.