Reuters reported that the Kazakhstani Parliament adopted the draft law "On Joint-Stock Companies" on June 17. The new law facilitates the registration procedures for open joint-stock companies and does not require registration for closed joint-stock companies. It also introduced "cumulative voting" procedure allowing minority investors to vote jointly at general meetings of shareholders. According to the established procedure, after the approval of parliament the new law comes into force once it has been signed by the president and published in press.

The Kazakhstani Government intends to issue a resolution on July 1 whereby "all restrictions in connection with the protection of domestic production will be lifted. The Minister of Energy, Industry and Trade, Mukhtar Ablyazov said on June 17, 'unreasonably high import duties will be reduced and the excise on export, processing and production of gold will decrease from 40% to 10%.' According to the minister, liberalisation of the market will improve the position of many industrial and trade companies. Also the minister was quoted as saying that 'the measures to be undertaken for maximum liberalisation of the market are necessary to mitigate the impact of the crisis in South East Asia.' "(Interfax)

The Committee for Statistics and Analysis reported, according to Reuters, a 2.4% reduction in the oil production in Kazakhstan in May. The oil output was 2.013 million tonnes in May against 2.063 million tonnes in April.

Budget deficit in Kazakhstan over the January-April period totalled KZT8.5bn (US $111m), the State Committee for Statistics and Analysis reported to Reuters. Over the same period, budget revenues and transfers totalled KZT98.3bn (US $1.282bn) while expenditures, including net crediting totalled ZT100.2bn (US $1.306bn). The budget revenues are structured as follows: tax revenue—80%; non-tax revenue—6.7%; capital operation revenue—13.3%.

Prime Minister Nurlan Balgimbaev held a meeting on June 16 with representatives of the "blue chip" companies AktobeMunaiGas, Kazakhmys, and MangystauMunaiGas, the newspaper Kazakhstanskaya Pravda reported. Attending the meeting were the First Deputy Prime Minister Uraz Zhandosov, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Pavlov, and Minister of Finance Sauat Mynbaev. It was stated that the targeted revenue from selling state shares in blue chip companies should be achieved by the end of this year in accordance with the budget. Meanwhile, some companies have not yet completed audits. To summarise the meeting, Nurlan Balgimbaev noted that the implementation of the blue chip programme will contribute to the development of the Kazakhstani stock market.

As the newspaper Kazakhstanskaya Pravda wrote, last week, President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who governed the Kazakhstani delegation in Turkey, held negotiations with his Turkish counterpart Suleyman Demirel. Both presidents agreed that the current trade turnover between the two countries (about US $300m) should be increased to US $500m at the first stage and on to US $1bn. President Nazarbaev also met with Premier Mesut Yilmaz and Foreign Minister Ismail Cem. Nazarbaev called on Turkish leaders and business people for more active co-operation and expansion of bilateral economic ties and in particular in the construction of oil and gas pipelines, transport and telecommunication facilities.