ALMATY (Reuters) - Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev appointed Askar Mamin as prime minister on Monday, his office said on Twitter, after ordering the cabinet to resign last week.

Mamin, 53, has previously served as first deputy prime minister of the oil-exporting Central Asian nation and also worked as the mayor of capital Astana and chief executive of the state railways.

Kazakhstan’s Mazhilis, the lower house of parliament, quickly approved Mamin’s nomination announced earlier in the day.

Nazarbayev, who has run the former Soviet republic of 18 million since 1989, scolded the government last week for failing to improve living standards and boost economic growth, and ordered it to step down.