Guldariya Aimagambetova, Lyazat Talimova, Baldyrgan Jazykbayeva
The economies of catching up countries have always been under the pressure of globalization. This is the consequence of the situation when, being in a subordinate position of “Center-Periphery”, developing countries use comparative advantages in international trade, specializing in the supply of products from low-tech industries. This leads to structural shifts that do not always correspond to an efficient economy. The economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan is in this situation. In the article, the authors tried to assess the structural changes that occurred in Kazakhstan in the period from 1990 to 2019. Since the beginning of independence, Kazakhstan has been actively involved in international trade, opened its market for foreign investment, and export-import operations were implemented almost without restrictions. The result was significant structural shifts that resulted in the deindustrialization of the economy. The impact of globalization on the catching-up economies has received much attention in the works of many economists. There are a lot of studies that are devoted to issues of catching-up development, problems of redistribution of labor from less productive, labor-surplus sectors of the national economy to capital-intensive and more productive sectors.