Economic Development through taking “100 Concrete Steps”: An Outsider’s Assessment

Abstract

In this article, the author seeks to examine the economic development in Kazakhstan through the lens of his prior research about the Middle East and East/Southeast Asia. This article has a two-fold objective. Firstly, it will reflect on the wider economic reform plans in the country and considers if those fit into some existing economic theories on growth. Secondly, it will use two specific reforms as put forward by the “100 Concrete Steps” as examples of further reflection, namely establishing the Astana International Financial Center and tackling corruption. In this research, the author will employ mainly a comparative method but also supplemented by other methods such as historical approach, induction reasoning and use of pre-existing empirical evidence. In its comparison, the article will consider the experiences of other financial centers which have transplanted common law such as the Dubai International Financial Center and the lessons of Hong Kong and Singapore in successfully tackling corruption. This article contends that together with other ongoing reforms, the path of Kazakhstan seems to now prompt along the lines of a Western model of growth in which democracy, low corruption and rule of law are the emphasis, but with an understanding that it is not necessarily the only path Kazakhstan can undertake.