ALMATY – Kazakhstan plans to shorten the preparation of initial public offerings by up to five months and reduce the full cycle of bond issuance to as little as one to two months, but market participants say faster procedures alone may not attract more companies to the stock market.
The deeper challenge, they note, is creating sufficient investor demand and liquidity for newly listed securities. A roundtable discussion was held in Almaty on Sept. 2 to discuss the main provisions and key areas of the Stock Market Development Program until 2030.
Photo credit: Agency for Regulation and Development of Financial Market. The measures are included in the draft Capital Market Development Program for 2026–2030 and are intended to reduce costs and make Kazakhstan’s capital market more accessible to new issuers.
Business analyst Baubek Turekhanov said the proposed simplification is logical, but does not address what he considers the main barrier to companies entering the market. “Reducing the IPO preparation period and simplifying requirements for smaller issues look logical, but they address the wrong barrier,” Turekhanov told The Astana Times.
Kazakhstan’s capital market has expanded Business analyst Baubek Turekhanov. Photo credit: Turekhanov’s personal archive. Kazakhstan’s capital market has recorded sustained growth across its main segments in recent years. Over the past five years, the domestic equity market’s capitalization has more than doubled, with an average annual growth rate of 11%.
The government sees further capital market development as a way to expand access to long-term financing beyond traditional bank lending. “The implementation of these initiatives is aimed at creating a modern architecture of the stock market and conditions for its further development as one of the key sources of long-term financing for the economy alongside bank lending,” Agency for Regulation and Development of Financial Market Chair Madina Abylkassymova said during a Sept.
2 roundtable. The program envisions a “deep, liquid and diversified” capital market that would give businesses access to long-term financing, give individuals a wider range of reliable instruments for long-term savings, and help transform domestic savings into investment.
Faster procedures target a fragmented process Currently, companies seeking to enter the capital market interact with several institutions according to their respective mandates. The regulatory agency registers securities issues, the Central Securities Depository (CSD) assigns an international identification number and records ownership rights, while the stock exchange conducts listing procedures.