Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov held a regular meeting of the Council on improving the investment climate with the participation of heads of central government agencies, as well as representatives of the diplomatic corps and private business, El.kz cites primeminister.kz.
The main attention during the meeting was paid to the reforms carried out in the field of tax policy, investment cooperation, protection of intellectual property rights, subsidies for agricultural producers, etc. The meeting was organized by the Council.
In his speech Alikhan Smailov noted that attraction of investments remains one of the key factors of economic growth and one of the priorities of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Thus, the republic has introduced new mechanisms for investment agreements, allowing to conclude agreements on individual terms. Along with this, the stability of tax legislation is guaranteed for 10 years at the conclusion of the Agreement on Investment Obligations and fiscal incentives are introduced at the conclusion of the Improved Model Contract on complex oil and gas projects.
"The issue often raised by investors on limiting the amount of deductions for intangible services acquired from related non-resident persons has been resolved. Now this restriction will apply only to transactions with companies located in offshore jurisdictions," Prime Minister said.
As Head of the Government noted, one of the important aspects of improving investment attractiveness is a predictable and transparent tax policy. In this regard, a new Tax Code has been developed to reset fiscal regulation in Kazakhstan.
Currently, it is being actively discussed at various platforms with representatives of the business community and international organizations. Since the beginning of the year, more than 250 working meetings have been held and more than 1 thousand proposals have been received. All issues are weekly submitted for consideration by the permanent working group.
"While maintaining the existing incentives, a service model of administration, focused on the taxpayer, will be introduced under the new Tax Code. Tax reporting will be reduced by 30% and the number of tax payments by 20%," Alikhan Smailov said.
He added that the types of activities for application of the retail tax regime will be expanded 2 times, which will allow to cover more than 1 million taxpayers. In addition, new projects in the manufacturing industry will be exempted from taxes for 3 years.
It was also noted that thanks to the measures already taken, Kazakhstan for the year rose by 6 points in the IMD world competitiveness rating and took 37th place.
Following the discussion, the head of the Government instructed the authorized government agencies to work through all the proposals and recommendations.