Napier, MSCNewsWire, 27 April 2016  -  New Zealand’s Marc Holtzman has become the chairman of one of Asia’s major banks, Kazakhstan’s Kazkommertsbank.

The former Soviet republic is the size of Western Europe .

Mr Holtzman’s appointment as the chairman of Kazkommertsbank is the latest for the New Zealand-based financier in a string of high level appointments in emerging economies

Mr Holtzman (at left) pictured with Kazakhstan head of state Nursultan Nazarbayev has become a pivotal figure in the landlocked Central Asian nation’s new economic policy "Nurly zhol - Path to the Future".

Here, Mr Holtzman will find his long New Zealand experience of value.

Sparsely populated Kazakhastan is rapidly diversifying its economy away from what is viewed as an over-reliance on minerals to a new emphasis on its agriculture and especially on food processing.

Mr Holtzman’s arrival at the crossroads of the Silk Road follows a rapid series of changes for the long-time Arrowtown vineyard proprietor.

In recent times it was widely assumed that Mr Holtzman had retired on a more or less permanent basis to New Zealand with his young family. He had busied himself with the charter school movement there.

In the event Mr Holtzman who made his name as a merchant banker in the East Europe of the 1990s found himself drawn still further east.

Mr Holtzman’s hand on the helm of KazKommertsBank comes at a time of rapid change on these timeless steppes

There are the political pulls from Russia itself.

Then there are the demands of an economy that is quite suddenly no longer underpinned by minerals.

With a quarter share of Kazakhstan’s banking Kazkommertsbank is crucial to Kazakhstan's evolution as a balancing economic force between East and West.

It is all a long way away from Mr Holtzman’s Gibbston Valley vineyard.

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