
ASTANA -- For Baurzhan Bektemirov and his colleagues, the heavily promoted multibillion-dollar Expo 2017 that Astana is hosting until Sept. 10 is merely a warm-up.

Bektemirov, managing director of the Astana International Finance Center, said in an interview that he was excited by the prospect of creating a regional hub for companies and a capital market on the site after the expo.