The two best-known business schools in Kazakhstan are overcoming resource issues in a long-term drive to raise their standards to western levels, and help produce a new generation of managers for the country’s fast-changing economy.

The two schools – the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research (Kimep) and the International Academy of Business – are both based in Almaty, the capital until 1998. They are considered to be the pre-eminent business schools in central Asia and it is largely through their efforts that the MBA (Master of Business Administration) degree has become the gold standard for management education in Kazakhstan over the past decade.