Delegates to the Congress used the occasion to admire the booming western-style new capital of their ancestral country. They were obviously impressed to see that Kazakhstan had made great economic progress since the time of the first Congress of the World Kazakh Community in 1992 held in Turkistan city, the holy place for Kazakhstan’s Moslems worshipped as a virtual second Mecca. Regular events of such a scale have a considerable political significance for Astana in the international arena. The key speaker at the Congress, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, seized the opportunity to highlight major economic and political achievements of the country and concluded that “our economic model is a good example for developing countries”.

Economic figures cited by the president are really impressive. Over the last ten years, per capita GDP rose from $100 to $3400. Furthermore, the target set by the government is to raise that figure to $9000 by the year 2012. That task sounds feasible if one takes into account that over the last seven years, the annual economic growth rate has ranged between 9 and 10 percent. The country’s total GDP is $60 billion, surpassing the total GDP volume of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. President Nazarbayev, addressing the Congress, called Kazakhstan “the uncontested leader in the region”.

Nazarbayev’s speech was frequently interrupted by bursts of applauses which partly demonstrate the pride ethnic Kazakhs take in evident economic successes made by Kazakhstan, and partly admiration for the personality of Nursultan Nazarbayev, who managed to navigate the economy skillfully through hard times. It was a balm for the ears of ethnic Kazakhs to hear that Astana has eliminated all the problems inherited from tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union along the 14.500 kilometer border with China, as Nursultan Nazarbayev put it, “once and for all, without any doubts and reservations”. According to him, not a disputable patch is left on the Kazakh-Chinese border. He also characterized border relations with Russia as good-neighborly. More significant than positive intergovernmental relations with its neighbors is probably the demographic security that ensued from regulating the migration process. Since Kazakhstan gained its god-sent independence, more than 110,590 families of ethnic Kazakhs from abroad returned to Kazakhstan for permanent residence. Coupled with growing birth rates, the returnees boosted the population growth among Kazakhs by half a million, no exceeding by far the once predominant Slavic population. Nursultan Nazarbayev argued that Kazakhstan, pursuing a wise migration policy and encouraging natural demographic growth rates, corrected the “ethno-demographic disproportions” of the past. Recently, the Kazakh government raised the quota for ethnic Kazakh settlers from abroad to 15,000 families per year. The greatest population of Kazakhs numbering 1.7 million and 1.5 million respectively live in China and Uzbekistan. Many participants of the Congress hoped to hear a clear and definite answer to long-standing questions related to granting citizenship, housing and living conditions for Kazakh settlers returning from abroad. But the answer was ambiguous. Nazarbayev said that as every third Kazakh lives abroad, it is difficult to bring them all home at a time, and apparently there is no need to resettle them. He added that if ethnic Kazakhs wish to return to Kazakhstan, they should rely on their own financial means to cover all costs. On the other hand, he promised that amendments to the migration law would be introduced to make it easier for returnees to get citizenship.

This ambiguity signals a perceptible change in Astana’s policy towards ethnic Kazakhs. In the first years of independence, Kazakhs repatriated from abroad were warmly welcomed as a demographic counterbalance as Kazakhs had turned into a minority in their own land during Soviet years. Through financial aid and legal regulations, the government offered some housing and job benefits to repatriated Kazakhs. Over the past 14 years, Kazakhs have increased to make up 60 percent of the population. The demographic target achieved, some government officials see no reason to leave the door open for repatriated people from Uzbekistan, Afghanistan or Mongolia with low job qualifications. Ethnic Kazakh migrants are increasingly becoming an economic burden in overpopulated cities where jobs and housing are scarce. On the other hand, many settlers are deeply disappointed by broken promises of housing, social assistance and job opportunities. They feel they are better off in their adoptive countries. Dalelkhan Mamikhan, a delegate to the World Congress of Kazakhs, said that Kazakhs in China get social assistance from the government and have everything to preserve their language and culture.

The World Congress of Kazakhs fell short of many expectations. Astana attached more political importance to the event, rather than addressing the immediate economic and social problems of ethnic Kazakhs. Next autumn, Kazakhstan will, for the second time, host the Congress of World Religions. The event must add luster to Astana’s international image.