Dear Readers,
thank you for your interest in the first issue of information-analytical bulletin The Kazakhstan insider. The purpose of our newspaper is to inform those who are interested in business cooperation with Kazakhstan about the political and social risks which they may encounter in the country. This issue of the bulletin was prepared by the analytical department of the Open Dialog Foundation (Lublin, Poland) and it is devoted to the subject of oil sector workers protests in Western Kazakhstan.
The strikes, unprecedented in their scale and duration, began in May this year, but up till present time it is not clear how this conflict is going to be resolved. At the same time, according to the data collected by the Kazmunaigas company (its subsidiary companies have become the epicenter of the strike), during the first 9 months of 2011 the company produced only 9.207 million tons of oil, which is by 7% less than in the corresponding period of 2010.
We hope that our materials will help you make more informed decisions and will prompt you on the directions of further examination of the situation. We are open to your remarks and we will be grateful for your suggestions and ideas regarding the future themes of our publications.