Uzbekistan falls to second place as Russia dominates Kazakhstan’s outbound money transfers

In the first half of the year, individuals transferred 383.4 billion tenge ($799.3 million) from Kazakhstan, Ranking.kz reported citing data from the National Bank of Kazakhstan.

Compared to the same period in 2023, the flow of transfers to other countries decreased by 12.2%. The decline has continued for the second year in a row, with last year's decrease being 11.9%.

The largest share of transfers since the beginning of the year—119.6 billion tenge ($249.3 million)—was sent to Russia. Uzbekistan, with 103 billion tenge ($214.7 million), has fallen to second place.

Turkey rounds out the top three with 80.2 billion tenge ($167.2 million). Following with a noticeable gap are Georgia (29.6 billion tenge or $61.7 million), Kyrgyzstan (13.8 billion tenge/$28.7 million), and China (10.7 billion tenge/$22.3 million).

The volume of incoming transfers to Kazakhstan has decreased by more than a quarter to 120.3 billion tenge ($250.8 million). Russia remains the leader here, with 34.1 billion tenge ($71.1 million) in transfers, followed by the United States (15 billion tenge/$31.2 million) and South Korea (13.5 billion tenge/$28.1 million).

Uzbekistan is in fourth place in terms of incoming transfers to Kazakhstan (11.7 billion tenge/$24.4 million). Other major sources of transfers include Turkey (8.9 billion tenge/$18.5 million) and Germany (8.3 billion tenge/$17.3 million).