Kazakhstan cuts 2012 GDP forecast to 5.4% as metal exports slump

Gross domestic product will probably expand 5.4 percent this year, less than the previous forecast for 5.8 percent, Dossayev said yesterday at a government meeting in the Kazakh capital, Astana. President Nursultan Nazarbayev predicted 7 percent expansion on May 23, Bloomberg reports.

A slowdown in China and Europe's sovereign debt crisis are throttling demand for commodities, the mainstay of the economy of the second-largest oil producer in the former Soviet Union after Russia. The ministry revised its projection after prices of uranium, copper, aluminum and zinc dropped by 19 percent or more in the first eight months from 2011. GDP rose 5.2 percent in the January-September period from a year earlier, Prime Minister Serik Akhmetov said yesterday.

Kazakh industrial output may grow 2.7 percent in 2012, 0.9 percentage point less than previously forecast, according to the Economic Development and Trade Ministry. Industrial production expanded 0.5 percent in January through September from a year earlier.

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