The Kazakhstani government has confirmed its support for a major investment project by China’s East Hope Group, with First Deputy Prime Minister Nurlybek Nalibayev meeting the Chinese conglomerate’s director general Chen Lei to advance plans for a full-cycle green aluminium production complex in Kostanai Region.
The project, with a planned investment of approximately $12.6 billion, envisions an environmentally clean aluminium production chain encompassing bauxite mining and processing, an electrolysis plant and a wind power station to supply the operation with renewable electricity. East Hope Group is currently conducting geological exploration across a number of licence blocks in Kostanai and Aktobe regions in preparation for the project’s development phases.
The government’s endorsement follows earlier reports from late March indicating that Chinese investors are planning to construct two alumina plants in Kostanai Region with combined investments exceeding 1.1 trillion tenge. According to the regional administration, the first facility — with annual capacity of one million tonnes of alumina — is expected to begin operations in 2028, followed by a second plant capable of producing up to two million tonnes of alumina per year from 2029.
The scale of the proposed investment would make it one of the largest single foreign direct investment projects in Kazakhstan’s industrial history, and would establish the country as a significant player in global aluminium supply chains by creating fully integrated domestic capacity from raw material extraction through to primary metal production.
