ASTANA – The Astana city government collected in 2017 the highest amount of revenue in 10 years, reported finprom.kz. The past year also witnessed greater investment into Astana’s fixed assets.
“Astana’s budget revenue reached a record high of 469.4 billion tenge (US$1.37 billion) in the last ten years. Tax revenue contribution increased from 30.2 percent to 48.3 percent in ten years,” reads the statement.
Prior to 2014, transfers were the main revenue sources, accounting for 74.5 percent of the total revenue in 2008 and 55.8 percent in 2014, while tax revenue contribution did not exceed 40 percent.
Astana’s dependence on budget subsidies, however, weakened as the proportion of transfers declined to 48 percent by the end of 2017 and comprised only 38.4 percent in the first four months of this year. The tax revenue, on the contrary, accounted for 63.3 percent of the total revenue in the corresponding period.
“Kazakh capital has also become a magnet for investment, in terms of both domestic and foreign capital,” the statement reports.
As of May 2018, investment into Astana’s fixed assets comprised 335.4 billion tenge (US$980 million) growing from 265.4 billion tenge (US$776 million) in a year.
Over the period, the share of foreign investment increased 7.4 times from 13.7 billion tenge (US$40 million) to 101.3 billion tenge (US$296 million). The growth was due primarily to EXPO 2017 and Astana International Financial Centre efforts to attract foreign investment.
Astana’s gross domestic product (GDP) has grown steadily since 2007 rising from 1.1 trillion tenge (US$3.2 billion) to 5.8 trillion tenge (US$16 billion) in 2017. The indicator showed a growth of 18.5 percent over the last year.
Professional and scientific activities contributed 12.3 percent of the capital’s GDP. The other drivers were financial services and insurance (6.5 percent), transports and warehousing (6.2 percent) and information and communication (4.9 percent).
