Monday 26 October was a day off in Kazakhstan: Republic Day fell on a Sunday, so the holiday was moved. The government takes no decisions on such a day, but it publishes what has piled up: reports, replies to journalists' requests, the results of meetings. Those publications made up the day's agenda. It is best read against two events on either side: a week earlier Kazakhstan held an investment round table and hosted the head of NVIDIA, and on Wednesday 28 October President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will deliver his annual address to the people [1][2].
The address: the first since the political set-up changed
The President delivers the address to the people under Article 46 of the Constitution, setting the government's goals for the period ahead [1]. Tokayev said back in September, at a ceremony for the winners of the World Nomad Games, that he would speak in October, and on 20 October he named the date: 28 October, in the morning [1][2]. The title and themes have not been announced [2].
This address has a feature that is easy to miss behind the date. It will be the first since the country's political system changed: in August Aibek Dadebay was elected speaker of the first Kurultai, and on 31 August Yerlan Karin became vice-president, while Olzhas Bektenov kept his post as prime minister [1].
Alatau: construction against the backdrop of an investment week
Monday's weightiest event was the ground-breaking for Iconic Complex in Alatau: two towers 272 and 78 metres tall costing more than $800m, built by the Chinese state corporation CSCEC to a concept by the US firm SOM and due by the end of 2029 [3][15]. Alatau is a city near Almaty where, on the President's initiative, a special legal regime for investors is being introduced step by step, with its own system of governance and independent technical review of projects [3].
The timing was no coincidence. On 22 October Shymkent hosted the 9th Kazakhstan Global Investment Roundtable: more than 500 investors from over 40 countries, documents worth $4.8bn signed, and Alatau City projects among those the prime minister viewed before the plenary session [4]. Four days later the first skyscraper was started in Alatau itself, and the government backed the event with figures: fixed-capital investment in Alatau rose 1.6 times in nine months to 70.3 billion tenge, and the city's portfolio holds 67 projects worth $6.9bn [3]. Iconic Complex itself is due by the end of 2029.
The Year of Digitalisation: from NVIDIA's chief to IT centres in the regions
The President declared the Year of Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence back in his New Year address [5], and by October the programme works on two levels. The upper one is deals and visits: on 23 October Tokayev received NVIDIA co-founder Jensen Huang at Akorda, called AI development a national priority and welcomed NVIDIA's partnership with the Kazakh company Higgsfield, while Huang proposed making Kazakhstan a global hub for so-called physical AI [6]. The lower one is how the programme reaches the regions: the government's report on facilities opened for Republic Day lists, among plants, a polyclinic and a railway station, the AQTOBE IT HUB in Aktobe with Tomorrow School, a free programming school for adults [7][16].
The report itself is a familiar genre before state holidays: the government gathered into one publication a radiator plant in the Saryarka special economic zone, bone and cottonseed-oil processing in the Turkestan region, a station in Mangystau, a polyclinic in North Kazakhstan and a water pipeline in the Almaty region [7]. It does not say how many jobs the new plants created, so its weight for the economy cannot be judged from this publication.
Welfare: figures on the eve of new rules
The day's most telling figure came not from a press release but from a reply to a journalist's request. The Ministry of Labour told Kazinform that in 2025, 12,600 recipients of targeted social assistance were involved in employment measures (job placement, training, support for starting a business), half the 27,500 of 2021 [8][17]. The assistance itself was being paid on 1 October to 222,312 people from 41,252 families.
What makes the data matter is the calendar. From 1 January 2027, working-age low-income people will be able to receive assistance only if they take part in employment measures and sign a social contract [8]. In other words, the welfare-to-work link, which for five years reached fewer and fewer people on a voluntary basis, is becoming compulsory. The ministry did not explain why participation fell, and without that explanation it is hard to say whether employment centres are ready to take in everyone for whom the social contract becomes compulsory in two months.
Children: a reform and its test in practice
Education Minister Zhuldyz Suleimenova briefed Najat Maalla M'jid, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on Violence against Children, on the "Children of Kazakhstan" concept for 2026–2030, regional departments for children's rights and the single 111 helpline [9][18]. The same day in Pavlodar, the health department answered questions from the family of a premature baby boy found with a broken thigh bone at the perinatal centre: it pointed to the fragility of bones in babies with extremely low birth weight but did not name the cause directly, while relatives say they could not get an explanation from doctors for several days [10][19]. These are different stories, but the second shows what a family will judge the system by in practice: not the concept, but whether it gets answers in time.
Neighbours and sport
In Uzbekistan the same day, Sh.Mirziyoyev announced a film reform: the state will stop commissioning films, the Cinematography Agency and its 19 bodies will be abolished, and Uzbekfilm will become a national company that selects, funds and promotes projects but does not make films itself [11][20]. The reason was a decade's results: the film-production budget grew from 10 billion soums in 2016 to 218 billion in 2026, yet, according to the president, it is still foreign films that fill the theatres [11]. The same day the Central Bank of Uzbekistan issued the country's first Islamic banking licence, to Open Bank, four months after the law took effect [12][21].
For Kazakh sport, the news of the day came from Riyadh: the Olympic Council of Asia moved the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games to 28 March – 8 April 2027, so Kazakh combat-sports athletes will have to rebuild their preparation [13][22]. In Astana, Korea's NUMORI and Kazakhstan's Saz & Soul swapped folk songs: "Arirang" was performed with a dombra and "Nazkonyr" by the Korean musicians [14][23].
What comes next
On Tuesday the country returns to the working week, and on Wednesday it hears the address. The data released on the day off, on welfare ahead of new rules, investment in Alatau and how the Year of Digitalisation reaches the regions, will be the backdrop against which the address is measured.
