The Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Karim Massimov shares the opinion that the world economy cannot avoid another recession and says Kazakhstan is ready for such a scenario.

"The governor of the Bank of England believes a second stage of the global recession is inevitable. I share the opinion," Massimov said at a plenary session of the Majilis (lower chamber of parliament of Kazakhstan) on Thursday.

A consortium of Indian ONGC Videsh Ltd and GAIL India Ltd plans to buy an 8.4% stake in the Kashagan oil field from Exxon Mobil for about $5 billion, reports Hindustan Times.

The consortium has submitted a non-binding bid to Exxon to buy about half of its 16.8% stake in the oil field, the report said.

According to the newspaper, the parties continued negotiations, but the final decision regarding investment in the project will be for the government of India to make.

Commercial production at Kashagan is expected to begin at the end of 2012.

Experts of Standard&Poor's reckon that the "people's" IPO of Kazakh companies may strengthen their corporate governance.

"From the governance standpoint, we take a cautiously positive view on these initiatives: we expect that by placing shares among a broad category of domestic investors, these companies will be subject to greater market scrutiny and become more focused on the political and other benefits of acting in the interests of shareholders," Standard & Poor's Governance, Accountability, Management Metrics & Analysis (GAMMA) says in its latest newsletter.

The Kazakh State Agency for Financial Supervision (FSA) believes that the national and quasi-state companies should not be listed on the foreign stock exchanges, says FSA Deputy Chair Alina Aldambergen.

Kazakhstan will promote Almaty as a regional financial center during its chairmanship of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, says Deputy Chairman of the National Bank of Kazakhstan Daniyar Akishev.

"Kazakhstan's chairmanship of the Organization of the Islamic Conference this year will be an opportunity to promote Almaty as a regional hub for Islamic financing," he said at the Second Islamic Financial Conference on Monday in Astana.

Kazakhstan expects to raise up to $10 billion in the next 5-7 years through the issuance of Islamic securities, said chairman of the Agency for Regional Financial Center of Almaty Arken Arystanov.

"We hope that we can raise $10 billion over the next 5-7 years through the offering of Islamic securities," he said at the 2nd Islamic Finance Conference in Astana.

"This is about 10% of all banking assets in Kazakhstan," said Arystanov.

JSC KazMunayGas Exploration Production (KMG EP, part of National Company KazMunayGas) will offer 5% of its shares on the domestic market, said Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

At a briefing with media the head of state shed some details about the upcoming People's IPO.

The authorized capital of the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) has risen 160% to 517.3 million (146/$1).

KASE says in a statement that the Exchange Council made a decision to increase the authorized capital in October 2010. The capital was increased by 315.095 million tenge through the issue of 85,000 common shares that were sold to the KASE shareholders at 3,707 tenge per share.

The placement was over on February 16, 2011 and, as a result, the authorized capital of the stock exchange rose 160% to 517,290,582 tenge.

The Kazakhstan Government plans to present People's IPO program in two weeks.

"The so-called People's IPO, has not been approved and it is still under development. Within the next 10-14 days together with the Ministry of Finance and Samruk-Kazyna we will finally dot the i's and cross the t's and finally resolve the issue of involving citizens in taking interest in state property through the pension funds," Prime Minister Karim Masimov said at the National Business Forum-2011 organized by Zertteu Group on Monday in Astana on March 2.

The total capitalization of non-government securities at the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) stood at 12,048.402 million tenge (146.36/$1) as at January 1, 2011, or 62.4% of GDP, said the Kazakh State Financial Supervision Agency (FSA).

According to the FSA, a year ago this figure was at 11,650.878 million tenge, or 68.5% of GDP.

Thus the capitalization of non-government securities grew 3.4% year-on-year in value but shrink in percentage of GDP.