Kazakh industrial output shrinks 0.5% in second monthly drop

Output at factories, mines and utilities dropped 0.5 percent from a year earlier after a 1.7 percent decrease in June, the Astana-based state statistics agency said on its website today. The median estimate of four economists in a Bloomberg survey was for 0.5 percent growth. Production fell 3.5 percent in July on a monthly basis.

Kazakhstan, which last week reduced its main interest rate for a fourth time this year, is following emerging economies from Brazil to India in lowering borrowing costs. While the government predicts the economy of the second-biggest oil producer in the former Soviet Union will gain 7 percent in 2012 and maintain that pace of expansion until 2015, gross domestic product grew 5.6 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, Kazinform has learnt from Bloomberg.

Iron-ore production slumped 6.6 percent in July and non- ferrous metal-ore production fell 2.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the statistics agency. Production of crude oil and natural gas climbed 8.7 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively.