Against the backdrop of deep adjustments in the global economic landscape and continuous deepening of regional cooperation, Kazakhstan's foreign trade development has delivered a steady and positive answer. Its overall trade scale is steadily increasing, with strong export momentum, and trade relations with member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union continue to heat up. Its import and export structure is diverse, demonstrating strong resilience and vitality.

Overall trade is steadily increasing and improving

From January to June 2026, Kazakhstan's overall foreign trade performance remained stable, with a total import and export trade volume of 71.8 billion US dollars, an increase of 7.2% compared to the same period last year. According to publicly available data from the National Bureau of Statistics of Kazakhstan, the country's export trade volume in the first half of the year was 40.3 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 8.6%; The scale of import trade was 31.5 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%. The export growth rate was significantly higher than the import growth rate, and the development trend of foreign trade was good.

The Trade Situation of the Eurasian Union

In the first half of the year, trade between Kazakhstan and member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union continued to heat up, with a total bilateral trade volume of 15.2 billion US dollars, an increase of 8.7% year-on-year. In terms of segmented categories, its export value to member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union was 4.6 billion US dollars, a slight decrease of 3.5% year-on-year; The import volume from member countries of the alliance reached 10.6 billion US dollars, a significant increase of 15% year-on-year, indicating a strong growth momentum in import trade. In the bilateral trade pattern, Russia ranks first with a share of 87.2%, Kyrgyzstan with 8.4%, Belarus with 4.1%, and Armenia with 0.3%, indicating a high degree of trade concentration.

Import and export structure and partners

In terms of export categories, crude oil and crude oil products are the core export products of Kazakhstan, accounting for 46.5% of the total export value. The remaining major export categories are refined copper and unprocessed copper alloys at 7.1%, copper ores and concentrates at 5.1%, radioactive chemical elements and isotopes at 3.7%, and ferroalloys at 2.7%. In terms of export market, China is the largest export market of Kazakhstan, accounting for 18.6%, followed by Italy, Russia, Türkiye, the Netherlands and France, accounting for 17.3%, 8.6%, 8%, 6.4% and 5.7% respectively. Keywords: Kazakhstan, Eurasian Union, imports and exports, crude oil exports, bilateral trade

Among the imported categories, passenger cars and various types of motor vehicles are the largest imported categories in the country, accounting for 3.2% of the total import value. Next are telephone equipment at 2.7%, pharmaceuticals at 2.5%, petroleum gas and other gaseous hydrocarbons at 2.5%, and generator sets and rotary power conversion equipment at 2.3%. In terms of import source, Russia is the largest import source country of Kazakhstan, accounting for 30.9%, China ranks second with 29.1%, and Germany, the United States, South Korea and Türkiye successively rank the following seats, accounting for 4.8%, 4.2%, 2.5% and 2.2% respectively.Editor/Gong Ziwei