Temirlan Mukhanbetzhanov, board member of the World Alliance of International Financial Centers (WAIFC) and the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), discussed the AIFC’s 2025 objectives, including attracting international financial institutions, expanding its resident companies, and strengthening its role as Central Asia’s leading financial and innovation hub.
“By leveraging an English common law-based legal framework and a strategic geographical location, the main objective for the AIFC for 2025 is to attract two or three international financial institutions. This will help solidify our role as the leading financial and innovation hub in Central Asia facilitating the growing capital flows between Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
“Last year, we’ve seen more than 1300 non-financial firms choosing AIFC jurisdiction for its legal domicile and place of primary operations. We’re targeting to bring this number to 2000 this year and reach a total of 6500+ resident companies. An important part of the Centre’s efforts this year will be put to uncover and facilitate trade and investment opportunities around the emerging ‘Middle Corridor’ transit route passing through Kazakhstan and connecting the Chinese market with Europe and Middle East.
We’re seeing a very good dynamics in capital market transactions in the last couple of years. Astana International Exchange (AIX), the main venue for debt and equity listing in the AIFC, had 140 new securities listing from 68 issuers raising more than $2.3 billion in capital. Trading turnover of the exchange more than doubled from $582 million in 2023 to $1.3 billion in 2024, and the number of retail investor accounts grew from 1.5 million to over 1.9 million. As part of Kazakhstan’s climate commitments, AIX launched new carbon trading segment, offering voluntary carbon credits and emissions reduction incentives.
“We’re also seeing a remarkable growth in trading activity at ITS, the first multilateral trading facility (MTF) registered in the AIFC operating its own central securities depository and clearinghouse. Aimed to provide easy access to global stock markets for clients from CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries and EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa] leveraging Kazakhstan’s time zone, the platform registered a record trading volume of $200 million in 2024. We aim to build on this success this year, further enhancing the liquidity and breadth of products.”