A decision on the privatisation of Kazakhstan's largest uranium producer, Tselinny Mining and Chemical Plant based in Central Kazakhstan, will be made in mid-April, Deputy Prime Minster Alexander Pavlov said to Interfax. According to him, the government has recently been negotiating on this matter with Africa Israel Investments Ltd. If the plant is sold to the Israeli investor, the latter will have to repay about USD 10m in wage arrears as well as compensate for the expenses of the national company Kazatomprom, which is now funding the plant.

The Kazakhstani government declared the plant bankrupt last year and has been looking for a buyer since that time. (Interfax)

TuranAlem, one of Kazakhstan's largest second-tier banks, intends to float part of its stock on the KASE in the second half of the year, and this issue may total 20% of the bank's capital. This information was released at a press conference held by the bank's Chairman, Erzhan Tatishev. He said that the volume of the issue is to be finalised at a general meeting of the bank's shareholders and that the stock will be placed both on domestic and international markets.

As of the beginning of the year, the bank had a paid-in authorised capital of KZT 7.931m, the biggest among second-tier Kazakhstani banks. In 1998, it reported a profit of KZT 1.6bn, which was used completely for the bank's capitalisation. As a result, the bank's share capital rose 3.7 times to KZT 3.676m. Currently, the bank has more than 30,000 corporate clients and about 500,000 individual depositors. The bank's loan portfolio has reached KZT 9.6bn or 52% of its gross assets. (Interfax)

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On 31 March, Kazkommertsbank (KKB) signed a USD 22m loan agreement with a syndicate of banks including American Express, Commerzbank AG, ABN AMRO Bank, ING Bank, Vereins-und Westbank, and Dresdner Bank. The loan is for 6 months with the option of extending for another 6 months. According to the bank's managing director, Oleg Kononenko, this is the second syndicated loan KKB has raised since the Russian crisis. Thus, KKB is the only bank in the CIS which has continued to tap international capital markets since August 1998.

In KKB's loan history, this loan is the fifth syndication. The bank has already paid back three of them in the amounts of USD 30m, USD 50m, and USD 35m. The latter sum was repaid on 29 March 1999. In November 1998 the bank repaid a total of USD 60m in external obligations on time. (Delovaya Nedelya & Interfax )