NUR-SULTAN – Kazakhstan’s digital transformation has had a $578 million positive economic effect, reported the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry press service. As a result of the changes, information and communications technology (ICT) costs have decreased 13 percent per year.
Digital transformation is one of the country’s main goals. The nation adopted the Digital Kazakhstan programme in 2017 to accelerate economic development and improve people’s quality of life through the use of digital technologies.
The programme is focused in five categories – digitising industries, transitioning to a digital state, implementing the Digital Silk Road, developing human capital and creating an innovative ecosystem. It has developed 17 initiatives and organised more than 100 events.
Since Digital Kazakhstan was implemented in 2018, information and communications investments have grown 40.3 percent per year to 92.5 billion tenge (US$238.9 million).
The same year, the share of organisations using computers increased from 70.7 percent to 77.7 percent year-on-year (yoy), reported ranking.kz. Organisations with Internet access grew from 67.7 percent to 75.1 percent in 2018 yoy; those offering Internet resources increased from 21.7 percent to 22.3 percent.
Investments decreased 10.2 percent to 46 billion tenge (US$118.8 million) yoy in the first nine months of 2019. Investments in fixed assets has been use to replace old equipment (15 percent), expand production capacity to increase the number of subscribers (11 percent) and introduce new technologies (5 percent).
The Kazakh government has estimated introducing digital technologies will result in 2-10 percent annual productivity growth, 3 percent field production growth, 25-50 percent agricultural productivity growth and a 10-20 percent decrease in production costs, reported primeminister.kz.
According to International Data Corporation (IDC), direct investment in digital transformation from 2020-2023 will reach $7.4 trillion. By 2023, the share of digitisation costs will increase from the current 36 percent to 50 percent of all ICT investments.
The greatest growth is forecast in data analysis and analytics, as companies create competitive advantages based on information.
