“We think it is feasible to draft proposals to change import customs duties to limit imports of foreign goods that are similar to those produced in Kazakhstan,” Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Yedil Mamytbekov said in Astana today.

He also said that the government was studying the possibility of punishing mining companies that did not submit information on their plans to buy goods and services. He specified that the Industry and Trade Ministry and the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry would take joint decisions on companies that failed to meet the provisions of their contracts, including the revocation of their licences to develop Kazakh deposits.

The Kazakh government explained the move by the need to support Kazakh suppliers of goods and services which occupy less than 80% of the market in the country’s oil and gas sphere.

Kazakhstan has already slapped a $109.91 per tonne customs duty on oil exported by companies that do not have fixed customs regimes in their contracts from 17 May. The government hopes to raise about $1bn by the end of this year. This measure will mainly concern the country’s national oil and gas company KazMunayGas, not multinationals which signed production sharing agreements with the Kazakh government on developing Kazakh fields.

These measures point to the Kazakh government’s desperation to raise additional funds to finance social and development programmes amid the continuing crisis in the country’s financial and construction sectors following the global liquidity squeeze last August. Kazakhstan also cut forecasts of economic growth in 2008 to 5% and plans to sequester its budget by some $800m. In this situation, the government badly needs any additional money, while the oil and gas sector with the soaring world energy prices is a prime target.