Oil prices drive Kazakh economy

Kazakhstan wants to be one of the world's top oil exporters

The economy of Kazakhstan grew by 9.4% in 2005, as the Central Asian nation benefited from soaring world oil prices, its economy minister said.

Exports in 2005 from the former Soviet republic grew 36.3% on the previous year, amounting to $28bn (£16bn).

Kazakhstan wants to become one of the world's top oil exporters in the next decade or two.

Since the Soviet Union collapsed, Kazakhstan has doubled production to more than a million barrels a day.

Western oil companies have played a big part in helping Kazakhstan's oil industry to achieve the rise.

Lack of transparency

Its current production puts it among the world's top 20 oil producers.

Still, Kazakhstan - a landlocked-nation of 15 million people - has ambitions to triple this amount over the next 10 or 20 years.

In the past eight years, economic growth, measured in terms of gross domestic product, has grown by 84%.

However, analysts say the Kazakh economy lacks transparency and is heavily dependent on exports of raw materials.

Unemployment by the end of 2005 was 8.2%. The average monthly wage was about 34,000 tenge ($260; £149), up a fifth on 2004.