Sary-Bulak Counts $216.6 Million in Mining Investment as Antimony Revival Gathers Pace

SARY-BULAK — Investment in Sary-Bulak District's mining sector has reached US$216.6 million, the district administration told Lieutenant Governor Aidar Maksat on a working visit on Thursday, a sign of how quickly the antimony business has revived since China tightened its export controls in 2024 and made the metal pay again.

The figure covers money pledged and money already spent across the Sary-Bulak Antimony Works (SBAW), the Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex, the Kemer Antimony Mine and the firms that supply them. All three sites are inside the ISEZ and are state property. The administration did not break the total down by company.

District head Taalaibek Imashev said investors had told his office that about 2% of their sales would go towards district roads, schools and clinics. "That is what the investors have indicated to us, and we intend to hold them to the spirit of it," he said. He added that no published agreement sets the share; for now it is a statement of intent rather than a commitment on paper.

Mr Maksat, who toured the district's works and met local officials, said the district's needs were plain to anyone who drove the Chatkal road. "Investment is welcome, and what stays in the valley matters as much as what leaves it," he said. Officials noted that the Ministry of Natural Resources, headed by Chingiz Asanov, remains the source of the concessions under which the works and mines operate.

The district tally sits comfortably inside the US$2.4 billion of investment agreements the ISEZ reported on 19 October, though that national figure counts signatures rather than disbursements. The two partners in the Sary-Bulak restart, who are due to be named at signing, were not mentioned during the visit.

The tally concerns ISEZ property only. The tribal Chatkal Highlands beyond the Qara-Chik line remain under the open-pit mining moratorium and are not part of the district's figures.

What happens next will depend on the paper. Residents of the district will be watching to see whether the promised 2% appears in a signed text, and when the first road and clinic budgets reflect it.