In November 2025, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the report “OECD Peer Reviews of Competition Law and Policy: Kazakhstan 2025”
(OECD Peer Reviews of Competition Law and Policy: Kazakhstan 2025, Competition Law and Policy Reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/b7659978-en).
This report presents the results of the OECD’s expert assessment of Kazakhstan’s competition legislation and policy conducted in 2025. It evaluates the progress and development of Kazakhstan’s competitive environment over the past decade since the first expert assessment in the country in 2016, and provides key recommendations for improving the effectiveness, independence, and predictability of Kazakhstan’s competition regime.
Main Findings of the Report
- Over the decade since 2016, Kazakhstan has undertaken substantial reforms to modernize its competition regulation system. Although the primary legal framework remains based on the Entrepreneurial Code adopted in 2015, a wide range of other legal provisions continue to regulate competition issues. Five successive “antimonopoly packages” have introduced numerous substantive and procedural changes to Kazakhstan’s competition legislation.
- The Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition (AZRK), re-established in 2020 as an independent body, has improved its internal structure, regional coordination, and mechanisms for interaction with stakeholders. In addition to enforcement, the Agency plays a leading role in broader policy areas, such as privatization, public procurement, and price monitoring. However, such a broad mandate risks undermining the Agency’s focus on its core functions of enforcing competition law.
- The expert assessment identified a number of structural and operational problems that continue to limit the effectiveness of antimonopoly regulation in Kazakhstan. These include a fragmented legal framework, reliance on preventive “soft law” tools instead of ex post enforcement, and limited use of important instruments such as leniency programs and effective market studies. Procedural formalism in market investigations, lack of specialization in the judicial system, and frequent legislative changes undermine legal certainty for businesses and overburden the judicial system.
- Kazakhstan’s economy continues to exhibit a high level of state intervention, with extensive participation of state-owned enterprises across all sectors and growing reliance on “single operators” with special or monopoly rights. Price regulation remains widespread, highlighting structural barriers to the transition from a planned to a fully market-based economy. Although reforms such as the “Yellow Pages Rule” and the establishment of the Privatization Office aim to reduce state intervention and market dominance, the principle of competitive neutrality remains elusive and poorly understood. Recent political and judicial reforms have not yet led to more consistent application of antimonopoly law.
- The AZRK actively participates in institutional cooperation. At the international level, it engages in regional and global forums such as the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), UNCTAD, and the OECD, contributing to policy dialogue and aligning its practices with international standards. At the national level, the Agency collaborates with sectoral regulators and government bodies to address competition issues in key economic sectors. More systematic and structured interaction with businesses, civil society, the academic community, and the judicial system is needed to raise awareness of competition principles, foster shared understanding of enforcement objectives, and ensure broader support for the reform program. A proactive and well-resourced advocacy strategy will help strengthen a culture of competition.
- The recommendations in this peer review cover Kazakhstan’s legal and institutional framework, enforcement practices, merger and acquisition control, state participation in the economy, market studies, advocacy activities, and judicial oversight. Their implementation will help Kazakhstan build a more effective, independent, and economically sound competition regime aligned with leading international practices, contributing to sustainable diversification and long-term economic growth.
Key OECD Expert Recommendations
1. Strengthening the Institutional Capacity and Resource Allocation of the Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition.
In the near term, focus should be on strengthening the Agency’s internal structure, human capacity, and prioritization mechanisms to enhance enforcement effectiveness.
- Allocate greater attention and appropriate resources to enforcing antimonopoly legislation (e.g., conducting investigations) rather than other non-core competition-related duties.
- Consider introducing a case prioritization process.
- Expand the investigation team by recruiting qualified analysts capable of performing necessary tasks, such as data analysts, data processing specialists, econometricians, and other technical experts.
- Consider reorganizing the Agency by areas of enforcement rather than by sectors.
- Review and reassess the role of the Analytical Research Center for Competition Development within the Agency’s structure, as well as the possibility of establishing a full-fledged Chief Economist’s Office within the Agency.
- Ensure proper training for staff dealing with competition issues, including through practical trainings and seminars on economic tools for competition analysis.
- Continue efforts to digitize processes within the Agency.
2. Improving the Effectiveness of Antimonopoly Regulation
2.1. It is necessary to enhance the analytical and substantive level of enforcement actions.
- Improve the quality of economic analysis of anticompetitive behavior and focus on assessing economic effects to gradually move away from excessive reliance on structural presumptions.
- Prioritize the investigation and prosecution of abuses related to discrimination rather than so-called exploitative abuses, such as “monopolistically high prices,” especially when based solely on observations of price increases.
2.2. Strengthen the merger and acquisition control regime to ensure its effectiveness and risk-based assessment.
- Consider abolishing the ex post notification regime and introducing mandatory prior notification with suspension of transactions for all types of economic concentrations.
- Introduce simplified procedures and notification forms for reviewing economic concentrations that do not raise competition concerns.
- More frequently apply remedies to address the negative impact of economic concentrations on competition.
2.3. Enhance legal certainty, transparency, and the deterrent effect of enforcement.
- Consider limiting or fully abolishing the notification system.
- Ensure the updating and publication of all methodologies used in investigations, but make them non-binding for the Agency. Implement a system of published guidelines for enforcement staff and judges.
- Consider increasing the amount of administrative fines for antimonopoly violations to strengthen their deterrent effect.
3. Promoting Competitive Neutrality and Protecting Market Interests.
It is necessary to support a level playing field and closer interaction with stakeholders.
- Limit the creation of single operators, state-owned enterprises, and natural monopolies.
- Promote competitive neutrality by applying the same rules to state-owned and private enterprises.
- Introduce transparent mechanisms for monitoring state aid and consider integrating best practices from the EU framework, such as clearly defined state aid criteria, provisions on timelines, transparency, and non-discrimination.
- Continue awareness-raising efforts aimed at increasing market participants’ and the general public’s understanding of competition and its benefits.
- Collaborate with state and local authorities, especially sectoral regulators, on incorporating competition policy into their work.
