Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, in the heart of Central Asia. For an African reader, this region is sometimes distant. It brings together five former Soviet republics – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan – sandwiched between Russia to the north, China to the east, the Caspian Sea to the west, and, further south, Afghanistan and Iran. Kazakhstan is the territorial giant: an immense continental country, rich in oil, gas, uranium, and minerals, located on several routes connecting China, Russia, Europe, and the Caspian Sea.
About 3,000 kilometers to the southwest is Oman, a sultanate on the Arabian Peninsula and a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council alongside Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Its capital, Muscat, overlooks the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Oman is thus at the crossroads of the Gulf, South Asia, and maritime routes leading to East Africa. Historically, the sultanate has particularly ancient ties with this part of the continent, notably with Zanzibar.
It is between these two geographies that something is beginning to take shape.
On October 5 and 6, 2026, Sultan Haitham bin Tarik of Oman made the first state visit by an Omani sovereign to Kazakhstan in Astana. The next day, October 7, the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation in the Kazakh capital hosted the 24th meeting of the Secretariat of the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions.
On one side: banks, sovereign funds, investments, infrastructure, and commercial corridors. On the other: religions, artificial intelligence, climate, ethics, and peace. At first glance, two agendas. In reality, two dimensions of the same strategy: to make Astana a platform where capital, states, civilizations, and new norms of the multipolar world meet.
Two leaders, two diversification strategies
This dynamic first bears the mark of two leaders. In Astana, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of Kazakhstan since 2019, is a career diplomat. A former Minister of Foreign Affairs, former Prime Minister, former Senate President, and former Director-General of the United Nations Office in Geneva, he has gradually made multivector diplomacy one of the hallmarks of his power: maintaining relations with Russia, deepening ties with China, continuing to deal with Europe and the United States, while further opening Kazakhstan to the Gulf powers, Turkey, and Asia.
In Muscat, Haitham bin Tarik, Sultan of Oman since 2020 after the death of Sultan Qaboos, is also pursuing a diversification policy. His economic project, centered around Oman Vision 2040, aims to reduce the country’s dependence on hydrocarbons by developing logistics, industry, investments, technologies, tourism, and financial services. Diplomatically, Oman has long cultivated a unique position: close to its Arab neighbors while maintaining channels with Iran, the West, and Asia.
In other words, Tokayev and Haitham share the same constraint: not to depend on a single economic or geopolitical axis.
The Omani visit changes scale
Sultan Haitham’s visit did not just produce a statement of intent. The two governments concluded a set of agreements covering investment protection, air transport, finance, investment, and economic cooperation.
One of the most visible projects is the establishment of a joint investment structure involving Samruk-Kazyna, the powerful Kazakh sovereign wealth fund, and the Oman Investment Authority, the financial arm of the Omani state.
But the real change in dimension appears in institutional finance.
The Sultanate is set to join the Eurasian Development Bank and host a presence of this institution on its territory. The Gulf thus enters more directly into a financial architecture historically oriented towards Eurasia, while Kazakhstan approaches a state open to the Indian Ocean.
The Eurasian Development Bank is a multilateral institution aimed at financing economic integration and development projects in its area of operation. Oman’s arrival thus creates a unique institutional bridge between a bank historically focused on Eurasia and a state directly open to the Indian Ocean.
For Kazakhstan, the interest is evident: to bring its continental economy closer to the Gulf financial centers. For Oman, it is an opportunity to more directly access the projects, natural resources, and infrastructure of Central Asia. This relationship also has a market dimension. Both countries want to deepen connections between their financial institutions, while the Astana International Financial Centre has been seeking to position itself as an international platform for several years.
The movement is therefore broader than trade: it is now about circulating the capital that finances trade, infrastructure, and investments.
Kazakhstan is the largest country in Central Asia. It is located in the middle of the major Eurasian land routes, between China, Russia, the Caucasus, and Europe. But it does not have direct access to the oceans. Oman is in almost the opposite situation. The sultanate has an exceptional maritime facade on the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, open to the Indian Ocean. Its ports, including Sohar, Duqm, and Salalah, can serve as gateways to India, Southeast Asia, and East Africa.
One has continental depth. The other, maritime openness.
It is in this complementarity that what could be called – at this stage not an official designation – the Astana-Muscat financial corridor is taking shape.
Astana can become a financial gateway to the economies of Central Asia and some Eurasian markets. Muscat can serve as an interface with Gulf capital and the maritime routes of the Indian Ocean.
The aim is obviously not to create a new Wall Street tomorrow.
It is more concrete: to build a chain allowing an investor, a sovereign fund, a bank, or a company to more easily articulate Gulf capital, Central Asian projects, logistical infrastructure, and external markets.
October 7 adds another dimension
This is precisely what makes the sequence of October 7 interesting. As soon as the Omani visit was over, Astana hosted the 24th meeting of the Secretariat of the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions.
More than thirty representatives of religious traditions, international organizations, and public institutions from around twenty countries participated. Two texts were adopted, one on the role of religions in the face of climate change, the other constituting an ethical code for the use of artificial intelligence in the religious sphere. The work also focused on a Charter of Rights for children with incurable diseases.
Kazakhstan is thus seeking to give this meeting a function that goes beyond traditional religious dialogue.
Astana also aims to present itself as a place where emerging norms related to AI, climate, coexistence, and international governance can be discussed.
Some officials speak in this regard of “spiritual diplomacy”: not to replace traditional diplomacy, but to maintain spaces for dialogue in a world marked by conflicts and fragmentation.
Kazakhstan is working on two infrastructures. The material infrastructure: corridors, banks, funds, investments, markets, and logistics. The immaterial infrastructure: trust, dialogue, norms, ethics, and peace.
