ASTANA – The Kazakh government approved Aug. 15 a national investment strategy for 2018-2022 which seeks to increase foreign investments 26 percent in five years and create a more favourable investment climate. Twenty-seven countries were identified as the most important for attracting investments.
Minister for Investment and Development Zhenis Kassymbek highlighted that the investment strategy was developed with the participation of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and the World Bank experts. The government hopes the increased investment will facilitate increased exports.
Today, products made in Kazakhstan are exported to 117 countries. Last year, Kazakhstan ranked 52nd among 204 countries with a share of 0.23 percent of global exports. Mainly, the state exports raw materials. But, in the past 10 years, exports of services have almost doubled, reaching $6.3 billion in 2016.
Also, Kassymbek said the volume of investments in fixed assets of non-primary sectors will increase 46 percent.
The ministry and the World Bank have identified priority sectors, which are considered the most important to attract new investments. The first group includes industries, such as food production industry, deep processing of oil, gas and other natural resources, and mechanical engineering. The second group includes sectors such as IT, tourism and finances.
The minister said the strategy seeks to attract foreign investments in non-resource industries to increase the country’s export potential.
It was proposed to legislatively fix the status of a single operator to promote exports for Kazakh Export national company, which will function on a single window principle and will have offices across Kazakhstan and abroad.
Twenty-seven countries are identified as promising markets, which are conditionally divided by the degree of export interest for Kazakhstan into priority, high and moderate interest countries and countries of interest in the long term. Eleven countries are considered to be the most important: Russia, the U.S., the U.K., Germany, China, France, Italy, Turkey, Japan, the UAE and South Korea.
Kassymbek said the Ministry for Investment and Development will work with Ministry of Foreign Affairs to develop individual plans of actions for each state.
