Its hulking thoroughfares may have to wait a while to witness traffic jams and many of its towers of glass and steel still await occupants, but Astana is already a fixture on the itinerary of globe-trotting movers and shakers.
An economic boom underwritten by its vast reserves of fossil fuel, metals and minerals has made this sparsely populated former Soviet republic a wealthy power broker in the region, sitting as it does on the shoulders of two giants: Russia and China. When most of the world was still reeling from the great financial crisis in 2011, Kazakhstan posted annual GDP growth in excess of 7%. No surprise, then, that with the blessings of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who steered the country out of the Soviet Union in 1991 and has ruled it ever since, Astana today aspires to be the Davos of central Asia: an unmissable pit stop in the diary of any signed up member of the global elite.
The Astana Economic Forum was born a few years ago as a talking shop where the region’s often fractious neighbours could iron out some of their differences. But thanks to Kazakhstan’s growing economic clout, the AEF’s list of attendees these days is an international who’s who. At this year’s AEF, the roll call of delegates included Tony Blair, former prime minister of Britain and now an adviser to giant corporations, Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson and celebrity doomsayer Nouriel Roubini.
Also in attendance were politicians, officials and businesspeople from Kazakhstan’s neighbouring countries, but for the first time, there were many delegates from places further afield, too. A posse of Nobel Prize-winning economists was also invited to provide some intellectual fireworks. They didn’t disappoint. As I discovered, chairing a debate between Nobel laureates who have radically different prescriptions for the world economy has a lot in common with umpiring a grudge match between champion boxers.
Professor Robert Mundell of Columbia University won the Nobel in 1999 for his pioneering work on the theory of optimum currency areas and is often hailed as the ‘father of the euro’. But his description of the euro as a thumping success and his suggestion of a form of universal monetary system as a solution for the world's economic woes riled his fellow Nobel honorees on the panel that included professors Robert Aumann (Nobel in 2005) and Eric Maskin (Nobel in 2007).
Astana may have a head start but it is only one among several cities in hitherto poor countries now flush with new-found wealth that are itching to shed their tags as the world’s entrepots. Mongolia’s mining boom has made it the world’s fastest-growing economy in the past couple of years and turned its capital Ulan Bator into a base camp for the next gold rush. Angola’s emergence as a major oil exporter has triggered a flurry of construction activity in its capital Luanda. Azerbaijan, another country whose fortunes are being turned upside down by a hydrocarbons-led windfall, signalled its ambitions by hosting the Eurovision song contest this year in its capital Baku.
It’s too early to tell which of these suddenly resource-rich countries will wisely harness the incredible turn in their fortunes and which will fritter it all away. For the moment, an increasingly resource-hungry world is happy to indulge them all. So if you plan to make your millions in this new age of gushing oil wells and munificent mines, get ready to pack your bags for Ulan Bator, Luanda, Baku, Yangon and, yes, Astana.
