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The Republic of Kazakhstan is a large landlocked country in Northern and Central Eurasia. Its territory is over 2,7 million km2 and is bigger than that of entire Western Europe. Kazakhstan borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and has a coastline on the Caspian Sea. The population of the country in 2008 was estimated at just over 15,8 million people. Together with other Central Asian republics Kazakhstan proclaimed its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and became the member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in December of the same year. The first nation-wide Presidential elections were held on 1 December 1991. Nursultan Nazarbaev was supported by 98.7% of the voters. As a result of the latest election on 4 December 2005, the President Nazarbaev was re-elected for the next seven years. In 1997 the nation’s capital changed from Almaty, the largest city, to Astana (formerly Akmola). Kazakhstan has enjoyed a steady growth of its GDP for the last five years with year-on-year increases of over 9%. Due to its strong economic performance Kazakhstan has become the first former Soviet republic to repay its debt in full to the International Monetary Fund in 2000, 7 years ahead of schedule. In September 2002 Kazakhstan became the first CIS country to receive an investment grade sovereign rating. Kazakhstan has about 8 billion tonnes of proven recoverable oil reserves. Industry analysts believe that planned expansion of oil production, together with the development of new fields, will enable the country to produce as much as 2 million barrels per day by 2015 taking the country into the worlds top 10 oil producers.
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