According to Minister of Labour and Social Protection Tamara Duissenova, 56.6 percent of Kazakhstan’s youth are involved in the country’s Employment Road Map 2020, BNews.kz reported. “The youth are one of the priority groups within the Employment Road Map 2020. Presently, the road map involves more than 148,000 young people under the age of 29, which is 56.6 percent of their total number,” she said. “Speaking of the particular directions of the programme, current data shows that about 5,000 people were employed under the programme’s first direction – implementation of infrastructure projects,” Duissenova said at a briefing at the Central Communications Service. According to the minister, the average salary for a programme participant was 47,000 tenge (US$258). About 2,000 participants obtained micro loans for the development of farming, 107 people for opening service stations and 76 people for opening bakeries. “Presently, 23,000 programme participants have completed their education within the third direction of the programme, professional training or moving and employment,” Duissenova said. About 16,500 young people were employed after completing their education.
More than 845,000 square metres of housing are to be commissioned nationally within the Affordable Housing 2020 programme in 2014, Minister of Economy and Budget Planning Yerbolat Dossayev said at a March 18 government meeting. “118.4 billion tenge (US$650.5 million) was allocated from the national budget for implementing the Affordable Housing 2020 programme in 2013. This allowed the building and commissioning of 703,600 square metres of housing,” he said. According to Dossayev, 159 billion tenge (US$873.5 million) is provided in the national budget to implement the programme in 2014. “These funds will be used to provide loans through the housing construction savings system and leasehold housing for people on waiting lists and young families, and develop infrastructure and build leasehold housing through the Kazakhstan Mortgage Company,” the minister said. “As a result, 845,300 square metres of housing is planned to be built and commissioned,” he said.
According to Kairat Nukenov, head of the regional department of entrepreneurship, trade and tourism, a service centre for entrepreneurs will be established in Pavlodar through the Business Road Map 2020. The centre will be a one-stop shop that will provide six types of services to businesspeople. It will also greatly reduce waiting times for permits and other documentation, he said. “For instance, the time for coordinating technical conditions for connection to power networks will be reduced by 12 days for power requirements of up to 1 megawatt and 36 days for power requirements over 1 megawatt. The time period for registering documents for land lots will be reduced by 90 days,” Nukenov said. “This will allow us to create more favourable conditions for business in the region,” the head of the department said.
At a March 18 Central Communications Service (CCS) briefing, the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan said that they will take measures to attract investment to the regions of the country. According to Deputy Chairman of the Assembly Yeraly Tugzhanov who is also head of the assembly’s secretariat, negotiations with representatives of small and medium-sized businesses in South Korea are already underway. “The President said the potential of the assembly should be used for the development of cooperation. It will be used to attract innovation and innovative technologies and to implement innovative projects,” he said. “We have reached an agreement with the governor of the East Kazakhstan region and our deputies will visit the region soon. The region is ready to demonstrate its economic potential and our key goal is to invite large and medium-sized businesses from South Korea to Kazakhstan. For this purpose, our representatives and representatives of the Korean ethnic and cultural association will work in this sphere with the regional authorities,” Tugzhanov said. According to him, such measures will be undertaken in all regions of the country.
President Nazarbayev’s recent state-of-the-nation address, “Kazakhstan’s Way 2050: Common Goal, Common Interests, Common Future,” has aroused the interest of the German business community. The Energy Agency of Germany has expressed interest in developing cooperation with Kazakhstan in the sphere of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Chief Executive of the German Energy Agency Stephan Kohler said, “The theses of the President’s address regarding energy efficiency issues and renewable energy sources are of special interest for us. Together with our Kazakhstan partners, we are currently working on a green mobility project aimed at creating infrastructure for electric cars and vehicles running on bio-fuel and gas.” Another project is developing cooperation in wind and solar energy, the results of which the partners plan to present at EXPO 2017 in Astana, he said.
