In Search of Coherence: Kazakhstan’s Trade and Industrial Policy

This paper aims to explain the evolution of Kazakhstan’s trade and industrial policy through an examination of official documents and declarations, policy-making processes and general government practices in the context of economic and geopolitical environment. The history of trade policy is presented in two periods: the liberalisation in the difficult 1990s and the rise in protectionism in the subsequent boom. The rise of protectionism coincided with a general reorientation of economic policies towards statism and is associated with improvements in fiscal and external balances and continued centralisation of political power.