breaking parts of the kernels do not contain the Casimir operator $C_A$ of the adjoint representation of $SU(3)$. Moreover, even in the theory with non-vanishing $\beta$ the correct results can be reconstructed by substituting the QED $\beta$-function by the corresponding QCD value [@Mue94] and, therefore, this treatment is sufficient to derive the reliable NLO predictions in QCD. Thus, some of the results of this paper can be regarded as a first step towards the complete derivation of the $\alpha_s$-corrections to the exclusive flavour-singlet evolution kernels which are presently completely unknown. Using the same technique, the purely gluonic case will be clarified in the nearest future [@BelMul98]. The knowledge of all other channels will allow one to check the result with a construction of the ($N=1$) SUSY Ward identities.

In this paper we mainly concern the predictions arising from the conformal algebra for the deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) process, namely, the solution of the evolution equations, which govern the $Q^2$-dependence of the corresponding structure functions, and the NLO corrections to all singlet coefficient functions in the ${\overline{\rm MS}}$ renormalization scheme. The final section is devoted to the issue of the renormalon chains contribution to the Efremov-Radyushkin-Brodsky-Lepage (ER-BL) kernel which can 