IMF Closes Kazakh 'Res Rep' Office.

(From The Moscow Times)

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- This month, the International Monetary Fund's representative in Almaty, the country's economic capital, ended a two-year assignment and was not to be replaced -- testimony to the Fund's faith that this former Soviet republic will not need to borrow money anytime soon.

The representative, Geoffrey stricher, a soft-spoken Canadian with a trim beard, said that while IMF teams would continue to come to Kazakhstan two or three times a year to provide technical assistance and discuss economic policy with the country's financial leadership, the closing of the "res rep" office was "a reflection of their success."

At independence in 1991, Kazakhstan's per-capita gross domestic product amounted to less than half than that of Russia. An economic crisis two years later sent Kazakhstan reeling with 1,600 percent inflation.

But in the past four years, the country has caught up with its neighbor to the north: Inflation has dropped to 6 percent and the economy has expanded by 40 percent.

Kazakhstan has also made impressive strides in improving its banking and financial sector, foreign observers say. Private bank deposits multiplied fivefold in the past three years and the number of credit card transactions has ballooned sixfold in four years, according to the country's central bank.

No bank has done better than Kazkommertsbank, the country's largest. With assets of $2.4 billion and a 25 percent return on equity, KKB recently sold 15 percent of its shares to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.