The National Statistical System (NSS) of the Republic of Kazakhstan is coordinated by the Bureau of National Statistics of the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms of the Republic of Kazakhstan (BNS). The Law on State Statistics, adopted in 2010 and regularly amended, governs the NSS, although the NSS itself is not legally defined. In practice, the BNS, the central and local executive bodies, and the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan comprise the NSS.
The BNS is responsible for producing and disseminating most of the official statistics covered by the OECD Review, spanning economic, social and environmental domains. It has adopted or adapted most of the major international classifications and standards for the statistical subject domains under review. Since 2022, the BNS has been implementing the “Digital Statistical Registers” project, which aims to create an integrated system of digital registers for all sectors of the economy and to update them based on data from government agencies and alternative sources, with a view to reducing response burden and increasing the reliability of statistical information generated from administrative data. The BNS regularly conducts key household surveys, such as the labour force survey and the household budget survey, largely in accordance with international standards, while also exploring the use of administrative and alternative data sources to complement these data collection instruments. The BNS is gradually transitioning towards a register‑based population census and, for the next census round in 2030, plans to use a combined method making increased use of statistical registers. The BNS conducted its second agricultural census in 2025, following the first occurring in 2006-2007, and further progress is needed to develop a more fully integrated agricultural statistics programme in Kazakhstan.
For most of the statistical subject domains under review, Kazakhstan’s official statistics are close to full alignment with OECD best policies and practices in terms of accuracy and credibility, coherence, alignment with international standards, coverage and relevance, timeliness and punctuality, accessibility, and interpretability. Some data gaps remain, including in public sector debt statistics, structural business statistics, business demography statistics, while development work is already underway to address other gaps, notably in environmental-economic accounts and trade by enterprise characteristics statistics. Similarly, across most domains, some quality dimensions could be further strengthened, such as coverage (e.g. data granularity) and interpretability (e.g. metadata), and the BNS is already making strides in these areas.
Overall, the review highlights the significant progress achieved by Kazakhstan and its NSS across many areas in recent years, with ongoing development initiatives undertaken by the BNS and other producers of official statistics advancing at pace and in line with international trends.
