Once a backwater and primarily a testing ground for Soviet nuclear missiles, Kazakhstan has managed to become one of the new rising powers on a global scale with determined policies under the able leadership of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Kazakhstan is of course one of the rising energy powers, with huge reserves of oil and natural gas and also tremendous reserves of uranium, which is often forgotten.
Already a leading producer of uranium, Kazakhstan plans to dominate the world market by 2010. At the same time it aims to move from just selling raw uranium to exporting processed nuclear fuel.
Kazakhstan has the second-largest reserves of uranium ore in the world, after Australia. Last year it produced more than 6,600 tons. This year, it plans to produce 9,600 tons, and by 2010, 15,000 tons, surpassing any other country in the world.
"This sector will give Kazakhstan an enormous geopolitical influence in the world. If you removed Kazakhstan, then the global nuclear energy industry would collapse," says Mukhtar Dzhakishev, president of state-owned mining and power company Kazatomprom.
Kazatomprom estimates that by 2030, when most of the nuclear power plants now being constructed across the world should be operating, Kazakhstan's coffers could receive $15 billion annually from exports of processed nuclear fuel, three times more than the export of raw uranium ore.
As a matter of fact, Kazakhstan already exports nuclear pellets to Russia and has signed an agreement with Russia in 2006 to begin enrichment of Kazakh uranium at the International Uranium Enrichment Center in Siberia. Furthermore, Kazakhstan concluded a deal with Toshiba of Japan last year to buy 10 percent of its Westinghouse subsidiary, an American world leader of nuclear reactors, which paved the way for Kazatomprom to participate in the production of future reactors and other nuclear facilities.
With ambitious plans in the uranium arena, Kazakhstan also aims to become the regional exporter of modern artillery systems in Central Asia. Defense Minister Daniyal Akhmetov has confirmed this intention and said that the country intends to sell such weapons not only regionally but also internationally.
In this regard one very important development is the recent agreement reached between Kazakhstan and Israel, as announced by Akhmetov. "As the main condition for purchasing new samples of military hardware, we demand that all technical documentation be handed over. Under the money in exchange for a technology scheme, for example, we purchased the new Nayza missile system from Israel and obtained all technical documentation for manufacturing this system at the Petropavlovsk heavy machinery building plant in the North Kazakhstan region and some other local enterprises."
The Israeli artillery system is an improvement over similar systems in the inventory of other Central Asian states, both in terms of its range and precision. Nayza can be used with different shells or missiles, including Grad and Uragan missiles, and has range of 95 miles. This optional capability as well as its long range makes it very attractive for potential regional states to have it, thus avoiding buying different systems for each type of shell or missile. Apart from Nayza's sale ability prospects Kazakhstan has also new artillery systems, called Aybat and Semser to offer, which seemed to evoke interest regionally.
With oil and gas power already in place and plans to become a global uranium power and regional arms-producing power under way, Kazakhstan is certainly rising. That is for sure.
