“As part of the additional budget allocation to support agriculture, it is planned to increase the amount of financing of the programme of agribusiness entities from 300 to 500 billion tenge(US$1.6 billion to $2.7 billion),” Minister of Agriculture Assylzhan Mamytbekov said at a March 6 media briefing. He noted that 13 billion tenge (US$69.7 million) will be allocated to support livestock. “This is subsidising the cost of poultry farms, dairy products and beef farms,” he explained.
State facilities worth 40 billion tenge (US$214.6 million) have been sold within the second wave of privatisation, Minister of Finance Bakhyt Sultanov said at a March 5 briefing. “The total amount of the sale was 29 billion tenge (US$155.6 million) without the IPO by KEGOC. If we include it, it will be 40 billion tenge (US$214.6 million).” According to him, entrepreneurs from the Zhambyl and Aktobe regions actively participated in the programme. About ten community properties were sold in the regions. “Unfortunately, the business in the Pavlodar region was not engaged in the process. Five facilities offered for sale have not been sold yet,” the minister stated.
According to a recent statement by Amaniyaz Yerzhanov, chairman of the Committee of Industrial Development and Industrial Safety of the Ministry of Investment and Development (MID), in the coming five years, 3,200 facilities listed in the State Energy Register (SER) plan to introduce energy saving plans until 2020. “One of the key mechanisms is the creation of the State Energy Register, including 7,000 facilities which are responsible for the energy audit in 2015,” Yerzhanov said. He added that Kazakhstan and the World Bank are implementing the grant project to improve the energy efficiency of the public facilities. “Under the project, more than 70 schools, kindergartens and hospitals will be upgraded for energy efficiency,” Yerzhanov noted. He also said that the country has 15 higher education centres and five higher education institutions which have trained more than1,000 specialists in this sphere.
The United Nations Development Programme in Kazakhstan and the Kazakh government launched a joint project this year called Sustainable Cities aimed at improving energy efficiency, Director of the Department of Energy and Environment of the United Nations Development Programme in Kazakhstan Rassul Rakhimov announced at a March 3 press conference. “In 2015, we hope to start a completely new project Sustainable Cities for the development of energy efficiency,” Rakhimov said. According to him, the project will be implemented with the financial support of the Global Environment Facility. “In this project, we plan to focus on creating the necessary conditions in Kazakhstan for the formation of stable energy efficiency in municipal infrastructure, developing effective transport management skills, waste management, the establishment of mechanisms to attract private investment to the city and municipal infrastructure,” said the head of the department. The organisation is also developing quality standards for lighting.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev received Serik Nugerbekov, head of the G-Global international secretariat and member of the Senate (upper chamber of Parliament), March 5 who reported about the promotion of the G-Global international project and also introduced plans for its further implementation. The President emphasised that the main objective of the G-Global project is to create a platform for discussion of current economic problems and joint search for answers to global crisis manifestations involving a wide range of participants. In this regard, Nazarbayev drew attention to the need to revise the principles of promoting the G-Global communication platform. The President gave instructions to develop its clear specialisation, providing compliance with the issues raised at the Astana Economic Forum (AEF). Nugerbekov said that the G-Global project is actively implemented on the Internet, contributing to the promotion of key projects in Kazakhstan. In particular, during last year’s Seventh AEF and World Anti-Crisis Conference, 400 online video conferences were held and more than 15,000 reports posted.
