The conference "Strategy of ensuring regional leadership of AIFC in the sphere of green finance" was held today in Astana, within the framework of which the Astana International Financial Centre presented the Concept of the development of the Green Financial System of Kazakhstan.

As Kairat Kelimbetov noted in his introductory speech, AIFC, which has defined green finance as one of the main strategic directions, will create all necessary conditions for the development of green products and financial services in the country.

"AIFC together with the EBRD worked on the Concept of the Green Financial System of Kazakhstan, which provides the issuance of green bonds through which important social and environmental projects can be implemented," Kairat Kelimbetov said.

According to the Head of Carbon Market Development of the EBRD Jan-Willem van de Ven, Kazakhstan supports the development of clean green finance in the country by adopting the Concept.

"The EBRD is a major participant in the support of green projects and technologies in the world and intends to assist in developing new financial instruments aimed at implementing green economy projects in Kazakhstan," the EBRD representative said.

The Head of the working group for the development of the Concept Catullus Helmer believes that green economy is one of the important tools for sustainable development of the country. The AIFC should become the driver of this direction in Kazakhstan.

AIFC Managing Director Aidar Kazybayev noted that work on green finance is continuing.

"Today we are completing the development of the Green Finance Development Concept.This is the first document in the history of Kazakhstan, where the AIFC positions itself as a regional financial hub, which will place and develop securities aimed at developing the green economy, support in the field of sustainable economy.

Today AIFC together with international experts presented its vision on how the green bond market, green loans will develop, what tools are needed in addition to supporting investors who are going to invest in green technologies, green projects," A. Kazybayev said.

He explained the concept of "green finance" in more detail.

"These are financial instruments aimed at supporting environmental projects and developing a green economy.For example, these are green bonds, green loans, green insurance, green purchases," the Managing Director explained.

At the same time, he noted that now the AIFC has already started developing the Strategy for Regional Leadership in the field of green finance. The importance of this document becomes clear when one considers that in the world, no financial centre positions itself as the centre of gravity of green finance.

"Taking into account the instructions of the Head of State that one of the priorities of Kazakhstan is the green economy, we must create for the enterprises of small and medium businesses, for financial institutions all the structure possibilities so that we have a green bond market. For example, if an investor wants his funds to be used to support environmental projects, energy efficiency, waste disposal, green transport, then he has the opportunity to issue or become an investor of green bonds," A. Kazybayev said.

In addition, the speaker stressed that the green bond market is one of the fastest growing in the world. It grows annually by 40-50%. This is due to the fact that the world community understands that environmental protection is the most important task for humanity.

Also, the experts of the project Christian Bruning and Lewis Redshaw, the head of the working group for the development of the Leadership Strategy, as well as the head of the Malaysian national company in the field of green technologies, GreenTech Catalyst Syed Ahmad Mustafa spoke at the conference.

They, in turn, noted the interest of global investors in the green economy of Kazakhstan and developed recommendations for stimulating investment and services in the green sector. In addition, the experts highly appreciated the key role of AIFC in establishing a platform for responsible investments in Kazakhstan.