ASTANA – Deputy chairpersons of the Kazakh National Chamber of Entrepreneurs (NCE) Gulnar Kurbanbayeva and Nurzhan Altayev explained the key novelties of the law, amendments and additions to certain legislative acts to improve the business environment in Kazakhstan during a Jan. 16 media briefing in the Central Communications Services (CCS). The law, as well as the changes on non-financial business support, went into effect Jan. 1
“The roadmap on funding businesses in rural areas is to be accepted. We hope that the programme will be accepted and certain changes will be introduced in it,” Kurbanbayeva said.
According to her, preparation of the law, in which the NCE actively participated, lasted a year. The newly-adopted law is necessary to reduce the number of requirements for business entities. The law is not a separate piece of legislation, rather the introduction of changes to 11 codes, 94 laws and various regulations that enhance or simplify the situation for doing business.
State control and supervision with respect to private entrepreneurs was divided into four groups. The first group includes the audited entities where scheduled inspections are conducted. This group represents the most hazardous activities (nuclear energy, trade in weapons, drugs, precursors, poisons, hazardous industrial materials, epidemiologically-significant objects and other similar spheres) which are subject to the special inspections based on risk assessment, unannounced inspections and other forms of control and supervision.
The second group includes audited entities where selective unscheduled inspections and other forms of control and supervision based on risk assessment are held.
The third group includes audited entities where unscheduled checks are made for the following reasons: control of implementing orders to eliminate violations, application of individuals and entities, orders of the prosecution on specific facts or causing a threat of harm to human life, health, environment and legitimate interests of individuals and legal entities and the state and applications of other state bodies.
The fourth group includes audited entities where only other forms of control and supervision without inspections are held.
Thirty-five permits were cancelled. Pursuant to the instructions of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the NCE reviewed the legislation to abolish regulations that impede business development. Based on the audit, more than 100 amendments elaborated by the NCE were introduced in the law. About 70 amendments to the regulatory acts are under consideration.
The procedure for changing the purpose of land use was optimised and the procedures of liquidation were also simplified. In particular, a taxpayer who stopped operating has the right to choose either to liquidate the entity through liquidation inspection held by the tax authority or through a conclusion made by the auditing organisation.
By law, the position of commissioner is being introduced to protect the rights of entrepreneurs. The business ombudsman will be appointed for four years by the NCE presidium.
Altayev noted that with the implementation of a number of governmental programmes, especially at the rural level, there are certain barriers for citizens who want to start their own businesses.
“In order to perform a task put forward by the President to the government and to the NCE to increase the share of small and medium-sized businesses, we think it is necessary to attract primarily those citizens who want to do business. In 2015, we have set a huge task of creating full-scale business support centres in each district,” Altayev said.
The NCE proposes to improve the current system of support for entrepreneurs in the regions by identifying business service centres (BSC), “one-stop shops” to provisioned all the tools of business support with the full support of business projects to the moment of receiving funding from businesses.
