Kazakhstan Plans to Boost Copper Output by Nearly 25% (Update1)

March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Kazakhstan plans to increase copper production by 95,000 tons, or almost 25 percent, from 400,000 tons by 2015, Deputy Prime Minister Aset Isekeshev said.

AO Kazzinc, a unit of Glencore International AG, will account for 70,000 tons of the increase and Kazakhmys Plc, Kazakhstan’s biggest copper miner, will take up the rest, Isekeshev said at a conference in the capital, Astana, today.

Kazakhstan must double metals production and exports within five years, President Nursultan Nazarbayev said in January in an address to the nation. Kazakhmys and Eurasian Natural Resources Corp., the world’s largest producer of ferrochrome on a chrome- content basis, have sought investment from China to fund new smelters and mines.

Economic growth in Kazakhstan slowed to 1.2 percent last year from 3.2 percent in 2008. The economy grew 10 percent on average each year between 2000 and 2007 as energy and metal prices rose.