If you're going to Deutsche Bank in Almaty, Kazakhstan's financial metropolis and former capital, take a good look at a street map. Located in The Banking Tower, the heart of Almaty's new financial centre, the offices should be easy enough to find, if it wasn't for the fact that the building is still part of one of the city's biggest construction sites.

Huge cranes dominate the scenery outside the new office of Elena Barneva, head of the Representative Office of Deutsche Bank in Almaty, but hardly any are moving. Until recently, the construction industry had seen growth of more than 36% a year; but the economic boom was mainly financed with foreign loans, contributing to a liquidity and credit crunch, and, as a result, it is the construction industry that has been most affected by the country's financial crisis.

Kazakhstan used to be a role model for other CIS-nations, with an annual GDP growth rate of more than 9% and an exemplary banking system. Due to its apparent financial health, Kazakhstan received an investment-grade credit rating and easier access to global capital markets - an opportunity that banks were eager to exploit. Loans totalling $45bn were taken out with the belief that the nation had a strong economy and flourishing oil industry to fall back on - a misconception also shared by foreign investors, who were courting the country. Deutsche Bank, alone, arranged 20 loans worth $7bn for Kazakhstani banks.

But when the global credit crunch started to take hold, it prompted a swift and irrevocable turning off of the credit tap. Gross foreign debt now totals $12bn, due for repayment this year. First-aid was offered by the government with a cash injection of $4bn, which helped settle the debt in the first half of the year.

But foreign banks remain calm. "We expect the current reluctance to give credit to Kazakhstan to continue until the end of the year, with a gradual return to lending but at noticeably higher rates," explains Barneva.

Financial institutions have shifted their focus from arranging syndicated credits to doing business with the mining industry. ATF-Bank Kazakhstan, which was taken over by Bank Austria Creditanstalt, has also changed direction. "We now concentrate on investment in real commerce,'" says Alexander Picker, CEO at AFT. The problem, according to Picker, is that 13% of credits have been offered to corporations from the construction and property sectors, which won't recover from a credit crisis as easily as foreign banks.

German company Knauf bought Knauf Gips Kaptschagaj seven years ago and now produces gypsum plasters in Kaptschagaj near Almaty and Inderborgskij, 170km north of the Caspian Sea. While the company initially profited from the building boom in Kazakhstan, it is now wrestling with the downturn in building activity. The majority of production output is now sold to the neighbouring countries Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The import of construction machines and materials has stopped almost entirely, including that of luxury SUVs - a Kazakhstani favourite. In the past, when private loans were easier to get, luxury cars were a familiar sight outside even the most run-down houses.

Restricted access to private and corporate loans in Kazakhstan has not only been a major blow for international automobile manufacturers, but also for forwarding agencies. "Our company has had to deal with a 70% decrease in goods traffic compared to last year," explains Tatjana Dulya, managing director of TOO RRL Rail & Road Logistics Almaty. German firm Van Belt International, whose trade with Kazakhstan is a major source of income, almost went out of business at the start of the year as a delivery of mowers was cancelled, with 150 containers still awaiting delivery.

Despite the financial crisis, foreign companies still have their eyes set on Kazakhstan. On 6 July, the new capital, Astana, celebrated its 10th anniversary. Despite its impressive skyline, a growth in population from 300,000 to 604,800 and investment of billions of US dollars into the country's economy over the last 10 years, President Nursultan Nazarbayev is still full of ideas for further development. Planned projects in and around Astana include a new tyre factory, an engine gathering factory, a car assembly plant and a silicon factory. A further 150 projects in the social sector are planned for completion in 2010.

The improvement of the country's infrastructure is high on the agenda. There are plans to revive the old Silk Route, to build a new North-South Corridor along the Caspian Sea and to encourage traffic between China and Europe via Kazakhstan and Russia. In October 2007, the government introduced a programme for the development of the entire transport sector: 80 new investment projects worth €20bn are planned for completion by 2015; at the end of June, the World Bank granted the country a generous cash injection of €1.7bn for the construction of the 1,025km road between Shymkent and Aktobe, which is part of the 2,800km corridor that runs from Kazakhstan's border with China (Khorgos) to its border with Russia (Srym). The estimated cost for the construction due for 2009 is €5.2bn. There can be no talk of crisis - at least when it comes to such ambitious projects.

"A crisis?" scoffs Waldemar Kaiser, representative of the German open-cast mining company TAKRAF in Kazakhstan. Kaiser has secured million-euro deals with major open-cast-mining companies Euroasiatische Energiekorporation and Bogatyr Access Komir that don't depend on loans from Kazakhstani banks. "We will be busy for the next 100 years," explains the Kazakhstan-born German national, who has exported German mining materials to the country since 1969. His only worry seems to be finding someone to take over his business. He could have retired a long time ago, but, as he explains, Kazakhstan still has so much to offer.

There seems no serious crisis in Kazakhstan, just a similar crunch to that affecting the West - which, it must be noted, is not the same as a full-blown recession or implosion of the economy at ground level. The current situation is a "stress test" or "healing shock", as one German banker noted recently, stating that during 2009 the economy will stabilise and growth will return in Kazakhstan. Falling property prices, market rationalisation, especially in the construction industry, the banks' shift from credits to deposits, as well as government intervention, may be enough to ensure an upturn in Kazakhstan. And when the cranes outside Barneva's office start up again, it won't be long before the shiny SUVs return to the streets of Almaty.