The capital of Kazakhstan used to be Almaty, in the South-East of the country, near the border with China. A new capital, Astana, was unveiled on June 10, 1998. From 1997 to 2019 the city’s population tripled, from around three hundred thousand to over one million people.

Astana was laid out by the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa and is located in the dry steppe zone of central Kazakhstan. The city has a continental climate with cold winters and warm summers.

Astana ranks second after Almaty in terms of trade and retail turnover, with its Gross Regional Product growing by over 7% in 2019 to 7835 billion tenge. The industrial base of the city is concentrated in the production of building materials, food and beverages, and mechanical engineering.

Today the capital of Kazakhstan is the main educational and scientific centre of the country and aspires to become a regional hub of knowledge, science, and innovations.

Astana is Kazakhstan’s largest transport hub, through which the main railways and highways pass. The city has direct connections to many international cities, including London, Paris, Frankfurt, Seoul, Tokyo, and Dubai. The following major Russian regions - with a total of 15 million people - are within a day or less by road: Omsk, Novosibirsk, Kypranskaya, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen, and Sverdlovsk. The following major Kazakh regions - with a total of almost six million people - are also within a day or less by road Karaganda, Kostanay, Pavlodar, Akmola, Astana, and North Kazakhstan.

Special Economic Zone

There are two special economic zones in Astana: SEZ «Astana – New City» (2002-2027) - currently nearing full capacity - and SEZ «Astana-Technopolis» (2017-2042). There are multiple benefits including tax incentives (corporate income tax, property tax, VAT on import, land tax, land rent in total is 0%), custom incentives (exemption from customs duties on raw materials and equipment imported to SEZs), the ready availability of engineering infrastructure and a simplified procedure for hiring foreign employees.