Six projects creating more than 2,000 new jobswill be launched in Astana this year as part of the Industrialisation Map programme for 2015-2019, according to a recent announcement by Astana Akim (Mayor) Adilbek Dzhaksybekov.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev emphasised that the main task for both state and business leaders is to create new jobs and businesses in the country. In his address Nurly Zhol – a Path to the Future, the head of state talked about supporting local entrepreneurs and improving measures for startups and business development on an ongoing basis.
According to Dzhaksybekov, about 8,000 workplaces were preserved and 4,000 more created in Astana in the framework of the Business Road Map 2020 state programme.
“In 2014, the city offered about 19,000 new jobs and over 13,000 of those were in the sphere of the small- and medium-sized businesses. Twenty-two projects worth 167.8 billion tenge (US$906.8 million) were implemented as part of the Industrialisation Map programme. This year we will increase the number of workplaces due to the launch of new production in the capital,” said Dzhaksybekov.
This year the Industrialisation Map programme will come into the second phase of its implementation. The programme was started in 2010 in order to diversify the economy and increase the competitiveness of industrial production. However, according to Nazarbayev, the first phase of the implementation hasn’t succeeded in creating a critical mass of successful industrial projects based on innovation and advanced technology.
The contribution of manufacturing in the country’s GDP fell from 11.3 percent in 2010 to 10.9 percent in 2013, while the number of innovative companies didn’t exceed 10 percent,according to a report provided by Uralsk Regional Analytical Centre. The share of raw materials in Kazakhstan’s exports rose from 70 percent to 84 percent. According to the Kazakh Ministry of Investment and Development, GDP growth slowed down similar to economic growth at an annual rate of 3.8 percent in the first quarter of the past year compared to the planned 5 percent.
During the second phase of the programme, Astana will concentrate on attracting foreign capital and technologies, especially in the processing industry. The total investment for the 2015-2019 plan is $35.7 billion, 90 percent of which should be contributed by private business. The previous phase was focused on projects related to the commodity sector and business investment didn’t exceed 39.3 percent, according to the Uralsk report.
According to the plan, the state will also offer more attraction measures, including a 10-year exemption for corporate income tax and land tax and eight-year exemption for property tax. Moreover, the stability of tax rates (excluding VAT and excise duties) and environmental charges and the right to hire foreign labour during the construction period of the investment project (plus one year), as well as compensation up to 30 percent of the state capital investments, will also be guaranteed for such investors. All of these provisions were envisaged in the new law on investment passed in mid-2014.
