Photo source: Akorda

Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov spoke about efforts to improve conditions for entrepreneurial activity in Kazakhstan at the enlarged Government session chaired by the Head of State.

Thus, according to him, since this year new approaches to business regulation are being introduced.

"A large-scale audit is being conducted to identify excessive requirements for businesses. As of today it has been revealed about 7,000 requirements which will be cancelled," Alikhan Smailov said.

He also noted that a new stage of reforming the state control system has been launched involving transition from inspections to prevention of violations through automation of risk management systems.

"This work should be completed next year before the end of the moratorium on inspections of small- and medium-sized businesses. These measures will allow increasing the number of people employed in SMEs to 4.7 million," the Prime Minister said.

He added that in order to further support businesses we have introduced preferential microlending at 5% in municipal, small towns and villages, and reduced the maximum amount of loans from 7 to 3 billion tenge, which allows to increase the coverage of SMEs by state support measures.

Additionally, he said, in order to promote competition, the reduction of state participation in the economy continues. In particular, the Comprehensive Privatisation Plan additionally includes 171 facilities, excludes about 200 socially important facilities in the areas of water, electricity and heat supply, which are important for the livelihood of the population, and conducts a public intellectual property audit of KazMunayGas.

At the same time, in order to reload public procurement mechanisms, legislative amendments were developed to eliminate the possibility of bypassing public procurement procedures, strengthen anti-corruption controls, improve the quality of projects, and balance the interests of the state and business.