Astana enjoying highest migration net with neighboring Uzbekistan
By Aynur Jafarova
Kazakhstan's capital Astana enjoys the highest migration net with neighboring Uzbekistan, the Department of Statistics of Astana said.
In general, the country has a positive migration balance with the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
"Uzbekistan has the highest migration net (233 people), followed by Russia (28 people), Kyrgyzstan (40 people), Azerbaijan (7 people), Turkmenistan (6 people), Ukraine (5 people) and Tajikistan (3 people)," the press service said.
Among other countries, a positive migration balance has been formed mainly with China (136 people), Mongolia (30 people), and Turkey (10 people).
The share of Kazakhs in the structure of migrants in terms of nationality is the greatest one - 88.3 percent- of the total number of arrived ones and 86.2 percent of the number of departures.
The current account of the population in January-July 2014 shows the number of people who arrived in Astana amounted to 24,301 people while 13,414 people left the city (migration balance of 10,887 people). Migration surplus is obtained mainly due to the internal migration (10,887 people).
There is also a surplus in the external migration (435 people).
Comparing the first halves of 2014 and 2013, the number of people arriving in Astana has increased by 65.6 percent, and the number of people leaving it increased by 48.9 percent.
In total, the population of Astana reached 835,153 people as of July 1, 2014.
Kazakhstan reports an increasing scale of illegal immigration, the number of which has reached 300,000 annually.
Earlier, the Kazakh Labor Ministry forecasted that the inflow of migrants to Kazakhstan will hit 500,000 in 2015.
Experts believe migrants' flow to Kazakhstan is mainly due to the country's economic growth which is higher than that of other Central Asian countries. Thus, the labor market of Kazakhstan is attractive for migrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China.