ASTANA – Eleven years after Kazakhstan joined the World Trade Organization, the country trades across a far wider global market under internationally agreed rules. However, one of the central challenges that preceded accession remains: reducing its dependence on commodity exports.
The World Trade Organization sets and oversees the rules governing international trade, with the aim of making trade between countries more open, predictable and efficient. Photo credit: WTO Kazakhstan became the WTO’s 162nd member in 2015 after nearly two decades of negotiations.
Its experience since then offers a measure of how deeply the economy has integrated into global trade and whether greater market access has translated into a more diversified export base. “It is important to understand that today, 98% of Kazakhstan’s trade is conducted with WTO member countries.
The organization remains a key element of the global trade architecture,” said Minister of Trade and Integration Arman Shakkaliyev during a briefing in September. Sagyndyk Kosherbayev, director of the Center for Trade and Investment Policy at the Astana-based Economic Research Institute, describes Kazakhstan’s accession to the WTO as one of the key stages in the country’s integration into the global economy.
According to him, by the end of 2025, Kazakhstan’s foreign trade turnover had reached $144.7 billion, up 89% from 2015. Over the same period, exports increased by 72%, while imports more than doubled. During Kazakhstan’s first WTO Trade Policy Review in 2024, WTO members also noted that the country’s trade volumes had roughly doubled since accession.
Sagyndyk Kosherbayev. Photo credit: Economic Research Institute Kosherbayev cautioned against attributing all of that growth directly to WTO membership. A more useful measure, he said, is how membership has changed the conditions under which Kazakhstan trades with the rest of the world.
“Kazakhstan remains a major exporter of commodities, meaning the value of its foreign trade is heavily influenced by global prices for oil, metals and uranium. Trade dynamics have also been shaped by the development of the Eurasian Economic Union, geopolitical shifts, exchange-rate fluctuations, transport and logistics constraints, and changes in the geography of trade flows,” Kosherbayev told The Astana Times.
According to Kosherbayev, some of the clearest gains from WTO membership have come through more predictable market access, lower tariffs and simpler customs procedures. “As part of its commitments, Kazakhstan bound tariffs across all product lines, while its average applied most-favored-nation tariff fell from 7.8% in 2015 to 5.6% in 2025.
A more open tariff regime lowered barriers to imports of equipment and production inputs, while binding maximum tariff levels made foreign trade conditions more predictable for businesses and investors,” Kosherbayev said. The expert also pointed to the progress in simplifying trade procedures, including introducing electronic customs declarations, a single-window system for export and import operations, and a customs risk-management system.