ASTANA – Kazakhstan should reduce the burden on business from law enforcement and regulatory authorities, said Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov, as he laid down instructions to improve the country’s investment climate at a Jan. 12 meeting of the Economic Policy Council in Astana, reported the Prime Minister’s press service.
Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov at the meeting with Economic Policy Council on Jan. 12. Photo credit: Prime Minister’s press service
“It is necessary to revise the Code of Criminal Procedure to remove unnecessary grounds and invalid reasons for initiating criminal cases against businesses. The Justice Ministry has received a relevant instruction, however, the country should strengthen this work and approach this issue in a comprehensive manner. It is necessary to progress deeper into the problems that entrepreneurs face and develop effective measures that will give quick and concrete results,” said Smailov.
According to the Minister of National Economy, Alibek Kuantyrov, in 2022, the volume of investments in fixed assets reached nearly 15 trillion tenge (US$32.5 billion), almost 94 percent of the plan. Kazakhstan saw a gradual recovery in investment activity with a growth trend of foreign direct investment in the non-primary sector.
To improve the investment environment, it was proposed to implement a number of comprehensive measures, particularly, to reduce the time for government agencies to approve investor applications for preferences and reduce the threshold amount of investments needed to receive state support measures.
The meeting participants also discussed approaches to improving the mechanism for concluding an investment agreement, introducing an investment rating of regions and developing separate normative legal acts (NLA) for investors to facilitate the implementation of state support measures provided for in existing laws and codes.
