Measures to further improve the business climate in Kazakhstan were considered at a government meeting, El.kz reports.
Minister of National Economy Alibek Kuantyrov reported that at the end of last year, the number of operating small and medium-sized businesses in the republic increased by 23.4% to about 2 million enterprises.
The total number of people employed in this sector increased by more than 18% to 4.1 million people.
In general, today about 40% of all people employed in the economy work in SMEs.
The volume of output by SMEs also increased by 28% and amounted to over 59 trillion tenge.
In order to further improve the business climate, work is underway to introduce a new regulatory policy for entrepreneurs, in particular, the abolition of unnecessary and outdated requirements.
As Kazakh PM Alikhan Smailov noted, the development of entrepreneurship is one of the strategic directions of the country's socio-economic development.
Thus, the share of small and medium-sized businesses in the economy by 2030 should exceed 40%. To this end, systemic measures have been implemented to support domestic entrepreneurship, the Government, together with the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs, is improving the legislative framework in this area.
Along with this, a new Tax Code is currently being developed, which will significantly simplify tax administration with full digitization of all its processes.
Also, since last year, measures have been implemented to improve the regulation of entrepreneurial activity "from scratch".
The Prime Minister added that within the framework of program documents, businesses are provided with measures of financial and other support.
In just 5 months of this year, more than 6 thousand projects were subsidized for a total amount of loans of about 440 billion tenge.
In addition, more than 4 thousand projects worth another 144 billion tenge have already been guaranteed.
"As a result of the measures taken, the share of small and medium-sized businesses in GDP at the end of last year increased by more than 3 percentage points and amounted to 36.5%. And this dynamics must be maintained," Alikhan Smailov emphasized.
Today business is mainly concentrated in large cities, so it is necessary to improve and expand its capabilities in single-industry towns and small settlements.
"For this, support is provided within the framework of the Aul Amanaty, Aul – El Besigi projects, the development of mono- and small towns, the Economy of Simple Things and the Business Roadmap – 2025.
Government agencies, together with the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs and the regions, need to ensure their high-quality implementation on the ground," the head of government said.
Along with this, it is necessary to accelerate the work on the abolition of unnecessary regulatory requirements, as well as on the automation of the system of state control over business.
"By the end of the year, we should see the result for each industry," Alikhan Smailov emphasized.
In conclusion, the Kazakh PM outlined the need for high-quality training of qualified specialists, especially for high-tech industries, as well as taking measures to adapt the system of training and education to modern requirements.