In many ways the rampant economic growth Kazakhstan has enjoyed over the last decade is just a taste of things to come. We are 15 years away from peak oil production and so our story is more about the promise of our resources than what we have achieved with them already. But it is a much bigger story than that. Annual growth over the decade of about 10 per cent has its roots in unprecedented strength in commodity prices, but the real revolution is in reforms we have put in place as the foundation for longer-term prosperity and stability.

First we opened our markets to foreign direct investment, which stands among the highest in emerging markets at around 7.5 per cent of gross domestic product. Then we reformed our banks to create a bedrock for economic growth, with banking assets now close to 100 per cent of GDP – higher than in Poland, Hungary or even Turkey. Then we introduced a multi-pillar pension system – the only country covered by the Asian Development Bank to do so – and have now achieved coverage of almost all of our working population.