Residents/consumers in Kazakhstan have gotten messages from banks, mobile telecommunications operators and other service providers issuing warnings of possible disruptions as most of the country gears up to switch to a different time zone from March 1.
In a bid to unify time across the country the size of Western Europe, most of Kazakhstan’s regions will shift their clocks back by one hour at midnight on Thursday, setting the whole country in the UTC+5 time zone.
Until this report, only the country’s western provinces have been in that time zone, while others, including main cities like Astana and Almaty, were an hour ahead. Kazakhstan, which fringes Russia and China, stretches 3,000 kilometres (about 1,900 miles) from east to west.
Kazakhstan’s backbone oil industry is directed in its west and is therefore not likely to suffer from any disturbances.
