Astana, 27 October. The Development Bank of Kazakhstan (DBK) has not financed private school construction since August 2026, but is keeping a 12.5 billion tenge credit line for two such schools in Atyrau and Shymkent approved in November 2025, the bank said in an official reply to Ulysmedia.
"At the time the projects were reviewed and financed, education was part of the Bank's mandate. In August 2026 a new investment strategy was approved, providing for an end to financing of this area," says the reply signed by the bank's chief of staff Aizhan Mendybayeva. The outlet noted that the school financing became public only in October 2026, a year after approval.
According to the DBK, when the application was reviewed Atyrau lacked 15,416 school places and Shymkent 24,021. The Atyrau school is designed for 580 pupils and 137 teachers, the Shymkent one for 900 pupils and 146 teachers. By the outlet's count, the two schools will cover about 4% of the shortage in these cities. The bank promises to make sure desks and chairs are supplied by Kazakh manufacturers.
Private clinics, unlike schools, remain within the bank's mandate. Applications under review, the outlet writes, include a 900-bed university hospital and a diagnostic centre in Shymkent, a project of the Seitzhanov family, several clinics in Almaty, one of them from businessman Kairat Itemgenov, and the conversion of a shopping centre into a hospital linked to Marat Kasanov. The bank justifies such loans by the shortage of medical facilities in the regions, new jobs and medical tourism. In total, according to its reply, the DBK has put 225 billion tenge into tourism projects; it did not say how much has been repaid.
A development bank whose job is new factories and industries was most convincing when talking about locally made school furniture.
What it means: A state bank set up to finance industry and infrastructure has in recent years also lent cheaply to private education, medicine and hotels. It has dropped schools under a new strategy, but approved loans and clinic applications remain.
Who benefits: Owners of private schools, clinics and hotels, who get long and cheap money from a state bank. The losers, by the outlet's logic, are industrial projects that could have used the same limited pool of concessional credit. The DBK did not explain this choice in its reply.
Background: The Development Bank of Kazakhstan is a subsidiary of the national holding Baiterek; by law it finances large investment projects, primarily in manufacturing and infrastructure, on terms cheaper than commercial banks.
We have also reported that Baiterek signed a $1bn memorandum on a terminal at Kuryk port.
