Logistics:
- As Kazakhstan is a bridge between Asia and Europe, its logistics potential is very significant. In 2013, there were 96 airports in Kazakhstan and 63 of them have paved runways. Kazakhstan is also an important oil and gas producer and has in the country 12 432 kilometers of pipeline for gas, 11 313 kilometers of pipeline for oil and 1 095 kilometers of pipeline for refined products.
- The transport by railways is important in Kazakhstan (14 184 kilometers) and there are 97 418 kilometers of roadways. The waterways network is also important with 4 000 kilometers of waterways on the Ertis River and Syr Darya River.
- There are also two major seaports: one is in Aqtau on the Caspian Sea and the other is located in Atyrau.
Communications:
[2] World Economic Forum, The Global Information Technology Report.
[3] Kazakhstan scores particularly well on contract enforcement and level of telephone connection.
- According to Reporters Without Borders, there is an increasingly suffocating climate for media freedom since several critical media have been banned. Opposition media faced unprecedented legal pressure in late 2012 on the ground they contributed to terrorism. Many observers linked the crackdown to the outlet’s coverage of the December 2011 deadly clashes between police and striking oil workers in Zhanaozen. Nowadays most media are controlled and influenced by members of the president’s family.[1]
- 4.2 million Telegrams14 were dispatched in 2013 and 1 069 million outgoing calls via automatic intercity phone communication resulted in conversations and 34% of them were international. There are 3 million urban telephone lines for 1.2 million rural [1]
- The government operated national networks and Russian stations are carried via cable and satellite. Main American social network (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) audience is less than 0.4%15. Near 10 million of Kazakhstan’s people use internet (i.e a 58.1% penetration rate) and there are 1.2 million Facebook subscribers16 (i.e 6.9% penetration rate).
- Human Rights and Democracy drew attention to some of the major restrictions on media freedom and the persecution and prosecution of journalists. However, the problems facing access to information go beyond the traditional print and broadcast media, as challenges concerning access to the internet are also growing. The Kazakhstan telecommunications industry is dominated by the near monopoly presence of the partially state-owned KazakhTelecom60, with limited competition from mobile providers such as Nursat, Megaline and Beeline.
- The World Economic Forum‟s Global Information Technology Report 2015 provides a useful assessment of Kazakhstan‟s telecoms provision. [3]. While achieving a middle ranking of 40 out of 143 countries surveyed [3] in some respects impressive given the scale of the geographical barriers to providing access, the report highlights two main areas of weakness. Firstly, the sector suffers from the same governance failings explained previously in this and the previous report; Kazakhstan scores poorly on freedom of the press (160th out of 180), property rights (103rd) and judicial independence (97th). Secondly, there are some more prosaic (and non-political) problems around lack of competition in the sector (101th & 104th on different measures) and, perhaps related to this, the cost of connecting both residents and businesses to telephone and web (111th).[4]
[2] World Economic Forum, The Global Information Technology Report.
[3] Kazakhstan scores particularly well on contract enforcement and level of telephone connection.