Kazakhstan's Exports Diversify with Wolfram, Driven by Chinese Investment
Kazakhstan's economy has gained another stable export position with the commencement of wolfram concentrate shipments abroad in the first nine months of 2025, driven by investments from Chinese companies. While the launch of a new large-scale mining and metallurgical complex (GMC) is a clear success, it simultaneously highlights a persistent structural issue within the Kazakh economy: its focus on raw materials and low-value-added products.
Top Three Fastest-Growing Export Goods
Kursiv Research regularly analyzes the fastest-growing export goods of Kazakhstan to identify promising sectors and track their dynamics, excluding goods with revenue below $25 million. The analysis for January-September 2025 revealed significant growth in three key areas: semi-finished alloy steel (+ $111.2 million), gas turbines with a capacity of 1 MW (+ $25.0 million), and wolfram ores and concentrates (+ $67.9 million). It is likely that only two of these goods are currently produced within Kazakhstan, with the country still developing the expertise for complex manufacturing like gas turbines.
Kazakhstan's core economic sectors, particularly the mining and metallurgical complex, retain substantial development potential. The country’s rich mineral resource base and accumulated expertise in the GMC allow for the launch of new projects focused on the extraction and production of relatively simple products.
Kursiv Research previously noted a significant increase in steel semi-finished product shipments of $58.1 million in the first half of 2025. Over the subsequent three months, these shipments doubled in value, with all growth directed towards Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan’s customs data had previously only recorded minor exports (under $700,000) of these products in the last 20 years.
Wolfram Production and Chinese Investment
Wolfram ores and concentrates represent a new addition to Kazakhstan’s list of rapidly growing exports. In late 2024, “Zhetysu Wolframy” completed the construction of a mining and processing plant (GOK) producing 65% wolfram concentrate. Commercial production and sales began in the second quarter of 2025, generating 16.4 billion tenge in revenue, all of which was exported to China, according to Kursiv, citing the company’s financial statements.
In 2015, “Zhetysu Wolframy,” whose ultimate beneficiaries are Chinese businessmen, secured a contract to mine wolfram ores at the Bogutinskoye deposit in the Almaty region, valid until 2040. A memorandum with the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development (now the Ministry of Industry and Construction) committed the company to invest $450 million in the development of the Bogutinskoye deposit, including $330 million in the construction of the GOK, $20 million to expand capacity to 4.5 million tons per year (currently 3.3 million tons), and $100 million for a project to process concentrate into ammonium paratungstate, contingent on its economic feasibility.
Other Notable Export Growth
The remaining seven fastest-growing export goods in Kazakhstan, ranked by growth rate, are: metal furniture (a 12.7-fold increase to $57.5 million), jewelry made from other precious metals (+675% to $45.8 million), light distillates (+561% to $112.9 million), perfumes and toilet water (+281% to $57.1 million), welded or round section ferrous metal pipes (+269% to $34.8 million), petroleum bitumen (+221% to $34.8 million), and hard wheat (+179% to $124.5 million).
The export of metal furniture, growing tenfold to $57.5 million, is particularly noteworthy, despite the historical record for the entire furniture industry of Kazakhstan not exceeding $17.0 million. The distribution of these exports is also unusual, with the majority of the physical volume (over 77.9%) going to neighboring countries (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia) but generating only a small portion of the revenue ($4.6 million, or 8.0%). The majority of the income ($52.6 million, or 91.4%) came from shipments to Belarus, a country with a developed furniture industry, achieved with a low physical volume of deliveries (only 12.1%).
These trade figures are not fully supported by domestic production. The furniture industry in Kazakhstan only grew by 0.2% during the reporting period, which is insufficient to account for such a sharp increase in exports.
A similar unusual growth pattern was observed in welded pipes made of black metal (+269% to $34.8 million), with historical volumes never exceeding $13.0 million. Most of the current deliveries (81.3%) were also shipped to Uzbekistan.
The sharp increase in exports of these goods may indicate circumvention of the ban on the export of ferrous and non-ferrous metal scrap, which was extended in April 2025. Scrap intended for export may have been quickly processed into finished or semi-finished metal products (furniture, pipes) for legal export.