Himalayan News Service

Kazakhstan, July 11:

Indian business is slowly waking up to the incessant clatter of cranes busy adding yet another glass-and-chrome high-rise in this brand new city - the brainchild of president Nursultan Nazarbayev who made it the capital seven years ago.

Indian construction majors like Punj Lloyd are already here for a piece of the construction work. Larsen and Toubro (L&T) plans to enter soon.

A delegation of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), India ‘s premier business chamber, visited Kazakhstan last month to assess business opportunities in the oil-rich country.

The CII plans to organise a seminar later this year in New Delhi to whip up more awareness about Kazakhstan as a prized business destination. Infrastructure development — roads and power distribution grids — are other areas of profitable engagement for the Indian business.

Gleaming glass towers, posh shopping malls, luxury hotels, chic clubs and casinos are fast proliferating in this city of half a million people.

“The building boom in this city is simply unprecedented. If Indian businessmen try hard, they can make a lot of money,” says an Indian diplomat here.

This is no hard-sell talk by an inspired salesman but a mere statement of facts. Astana is a city of the future and the pet project of Nazarbayev who has pumped billions of dollars into re-creating this former Tsarist enclave.

His market reforms, astute management of oil wealth and shrewd diplomacy that has China, Russia and the US courting him with equal fervour has created a stable industrial climate and a business-friendly atmosphere.

The net result is a vibrant economy growing at the rate of 10 per cent per year (higher than China ‘s). No wonder the US granted Kazakhstan the status of market economy three years ago.

Besides, the Kazakh government is promoting the construction industry in a major way to entice foreign investments.

An event called Astana Build was organised from May 18 to 20 to showcase construction opportunities in the city. KazBuild 2005 will take place in Almaty from September 7 to 10.

It ‘s not just money that should motivate Indian business but an opportunity to give a distinctive character to the city that is being planned under the tutelage of Japanese architectural guru Kurokawa Kisho who is playing with ‘metabolic’ designs that will allow buildings and cities to constantly adapt and grow.

This is not the first time the city is going through a metamorphosis: former Soviet president Nikita Khruschev tried his virgin lands project to turn the bleak steppes into vast wheat fields.

Astana, formerly Akmola, a city established as a military fort in the 1860s, became the capital in December 1997 when the government moved here from Almaty, the largest city in the southwestern corner of Kazakhstan and its capital since 1920s known as Alma Ata. In June 1998, Astana was officially presented as the new seat of government in the centre of Kazakhstan.

The building frenzy in the city is powered by Nazarbayev ‘s dream to create a new symbol of nationalist assertion to mark a radical break from the city ‘s Tsarist past.