AKIPRESS.COM - Kazakhstan plans to sell stakes of at least 25 percent in 43 large state-owned companies via initial public offerings (IPOs) in 2016-17, the Samruk-Kazyna sovereign wealth fund said on Wednesday.

The government faces a plunge in revenues from oil, Kazakhstan's main export. President Nursultan Nazarbayev told a government meeting on Wednesday he wanted Kazakh businessmen and companies to take part in the privatisations, reports Reuters.

The stakes will be sold on the floor of the oil-rich nation's financial centre being built in the capital Astana, the fund said.

The businesses to go public include oil and gas company KazMunaiGas, uranium company Kazatomprom, railway company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy and mining firm Tau-ken Samruk, it said.

Tau-ken Samruk has a 30 percent stake in Glencore-controlled zinc producer Kazzinc. Offered for sale will also be stakes in electricity firms united in the fund's division Samruk-Energo.

Samruk-Kazyna manages state-owned stakes in companies representing all major branches of Central Asia's largest economy.

Two sources close to the government told Reuters this month the companies in which the state would sell stakes included miner Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), flagship carrier Air Astana and Kazakhtelecom.

These companies, however, were not mentioned in Samruk's statement on Wednesday.

The fund said that besides holding IPOs in the 43 large companies, it would privatise 182 "non-core assets" through auctions in the same period.

The total value of the capital of all the companies slated for sell-off is around 2.5 trillion tenge ($8.1 billion), the fund said.