Karaganda Region’s total trade rose 22.6% to $3.32 billion in H1 2026. Exports grew 26.3% to $1.87 billion, outpacing the 18.1% increase in imports to $1.45 billion, although both expanded strongly. The region’s national shares are unusually even at around 4.6% for both exports and imports, a rare example of a balanced trade profile.
Russia remains the largest trading partner but recorded the slowest growth among major markets, rising just 3.0% to $1.34 billion. China, by contrast, expanded 87.6% to $698.2 million. Trade with Afghanistan surged 189.0%, albeit from a very modest base.
Exports
Exports rose 26.3% to $1.87 billion. Food products accounted for a modest 3.7% but grew faster than the rest of the export basket, increasing 37.8%.
Metallurgy dominates the export mix: copper ore, galvanized and hot-rolled steel, copper cathodes and coal. Notably, coal is now shipped not only to traditional buyers but also to Poland, a destination that had almost disappeared from the region’s trade.
The most striking detail is the sharp break in copper ore exports to China. Annual shipments held steady at $1.1-2.2 billion throughout 2015-2022 before suddenly collapsing to $165-459 million a year in 2023-2025. This is not a gradual cooling in demand but an abrupt regime change. Processing may have shifted to domestic facilities, or the product code may have changed. The primary data should be checked before the movement is attributed to market conditions. The second development is easier to interpret: coal exports to Poland, worth $149.9 million plus $113.7 million across two categories and accounting for more than a third of both, directly reflect Poland’s move away from Russian coal since 2022. A trade relationship of this scale simply did not exist a few years ago.
Imports
Imports rose 18.1% to $1.45 billion. Food products accounted for 10.1% and were the only major category to decline, edging down 3.9%.
Vehicle bodies, iron ore concentrate, coal and blood products are the four leading import categories.
Vehicle bodies from China are a relatively new development. Imports were close to zero before 2021, rose to $156.7 million in 2023 and remained at $166.2 million in 2025. This is a sustained dependency linked to vehicle assembly using imported bodies, not a one-off spike. Iron ore concentrate, by contrast, is a long-established pattern: whenever it is purchased, Russia consistently supplies 100%. Qarmet, formerly ArcelorMittal, regularly supplements its own production with Russian ore during periods of peak demand.
Karaganda Region’s 22.6% growth in turnover appears balanced on the surface, but underneath it lies a clear shift toward China through copper cathodes, vehicle bodies and generators, and toward new coal buyers such as Poland amid sanctions on Russian coal. The unexplained structural break in copper ore exports to China also deserves separate attention. It is not merely a number but a reason to verify the data before drawing conclusions about the market.
National Bureau of Economic Research specifically for EconomyKZ.org
