ASTANA — Kazakhstan’s mining sector sits on a paradox. It holds some of the world’s most strategically relevant mineral reserves, yet struggles to attract capital where it matters most at the earliest and riskiest stages of exploration. As global demand for critical minerals accelerates, the constraint is no longer geology, but the ability to turn potential into assets investors can trust.
Today, around 65% of Kazakhstan’s territory remains geologically underexplored. While approximately 3,000 exploration licenses have been issued, their development ultimately depends on attracting investment. A key constraint lies in how mineral reserves are reported and verified.
According to the AIFC report titled Kazakhstan as a Minerals Investment Hub: Unlocking Potential through the AIFC, the mining sector accounted for 12.1% of GDP, 16.1 trillion tenge (US$34.1 billion) in 2024, and approximately 33% of total exports, underscoring its structural role in the economy.
Metallurgy and mining projects represented 17% of total foreign direct investment, or around $3 billion, with FDI in the sector doubling compared to 2019 despite an overall decline in national inflows. The country holds significant reserves of copper, gold, chromium, and rare earth elements, while remaining the world’s largest uranium producer.
International investors typically rely on standardized frameworks such as the JORC Code, a globally recognized system that sets clear rules for assessing and disclosing exploration results and reserves. These standards are designed to make projects comparable, transparent, and, crucially, bankable.
In Kazakhstan, however, a significant share of reserves is still classified under legacy systems or has not yet been fully aligned with international reporting standards such as JORC or the national KAZRC framework. This creates a structural bottleneck. Exploration risk is high, data is often incomplete or not standardized, and investors face difficulty assessing project viability.
In practice, this reduces the pool of capital willing to engage at the earliest stages. A global problem with local implications Barry describes, the sector remains fragmented, with “everyone operating kind of solo.” Photo credit AIFC Kazakhstan’s situation reflects a broader shift in the global mining sector.
After a decade of underinvestment in exploration, the industry is now facing a shortage of discoveries just as demand for critical minerals accelerates. As Tim Barry, Arras Minerals Corporation CEO, noted the sector is “suddenly finding that we haven’t spent enough time trying to find them.” “I think the key factor is new discoveries.
We’ve entered a period where we have had for the last decade an underinvestment in exploration and now the world needs a lot of critical minerals. We’re suddenly finding that we haven’s spent enough time trying to find them. So if I was to put the number one issue, it’s investment into exploration to find new resources,” said Barry.