Kazakhstan’s bank is about to break, and it’s all because oil and natural gas went cheap fast.
Last week, falling in with Moscow, Astana announced that it will be tapping its oil wealth fund to steady its petroleum-dependent economy as the price of crude falls against a worldwide economic slump and what appears to be a budding US/Canada-OPEC oil war. Kazakhstan’s economy, which might be best described as “oil with a side of Russian subsidies” is beginning to buckle.
In the scheme of things, this is interesting; yet the bigger story is for Vladimir Putin’s Eurasian Customs Union and its future.
Russia has …read more
Source: CXSSR