Appointed in January 2022, Alikhan Smailov is the new Prime Minister of which country?

Kazakhstan

Uzbekistan

Kyrgystan

Turkmenistan

Answer: Kazakhstan

The parliament of Kazakhstan on January 11, 2022, unanimously approved Alikhan Smailov as the country’s new Prime Minister after his nomination by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

Born in 1972 in modern day Almaty in the then Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, Smailov first pursued mathematics in college before getting a master’s degree in public administration.

He worked in an investment firm in the early 1990s before being appointed as the chief specialist of the Trade and Industry Department of the Almaty City Administration in 1995. A year later, Smailov served as a trainee of the Supreme Economic Council under the President of Kazakhstan, before the head of Department of the National Statistical Agency of Kazakhstan in 1998.

Smailov went on to work in senior positions of various governmental organisations and departments over the next two decades, and his steady rise up the political ladder landed him in the chair of the Minister of Finance of the country in 2018.

Six months after his appointment to the post, Smailov was also appointed as the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan and served in both posts simultaneously, till Erulan Jamaubaev replaced him as finance minister in 2020.

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