Statement of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan B. Sagintayev in connection with the statements of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic A. Atambayev.

On October 7 of this year, the President of the Kyrgyz Republic A. Atambayev made a number of incorrect and unfriendly statements concerning certain aspects of the social and economic development of Kazakhstan.

Confirming my commitment to the development of bilateral relations with the Kyrgyz Republic, I am sure that the irresponsible, provocative and false statements of the President of Kyrgyzstan made for election purposes should not damage the centuries-old ties of friendship and mutual assistance between our countries.

In this regard, I decided to inform the Kyrgyz public about the real economic development of Kazakhstan.

During the years of independence, our economy has grown 20 times.

In 2012 Kazakhstan joined the ranks of 50 most competitive economies in the world.

A strong national business has been established in the country. Kazakhstan ranked 35th in the Doing Business World Bank ranking. Today, 1.3 million entrepreneurial structures produce ¼ of total national wealth.

Over the last ten years, within the State Program of Industrial and Innovative Development, more than one thousand new production facilities have been built, including the production of cars, locomotives, wagons, helicopters and many others. The release of 500 new products, which in our country have never been produced before, have been put into operation.

The transport infrastructure of Kazakhstan is being modernized. For 25 years, more than 10 thousand km of roads have been constructed and reconstructed. In the coming years, the network of motor roads with a length of more than 8,000 km will be modernized.

We have fully completed the construction of the Kazakhstan section of the Transcontinental Highway "Western Europe-Western China" with a length of 2800 km. More than 2,5 thousand km of new railways have been built.

The infrastructure of the seaport of Aktau has been modernized, a new ferry port of Kuryk has been built. The total throughput of seaports in the Caspian Sea has been increased to 26 million tons. Annually new airports and railway stations are put into operation.

During the years of independence, Kazakhstan has built 120 million square meters of housing, providing more than 1.1 million Kazakhstani families with apartments.

Only for 8 months of 2017 within the framework of the State Program "Nurly Zher", 6.9 million square meters of new housing have been put into operation. Including built 18.3 thousand individual houses. More than 61 thousand families of Kazakhstani people have improved their living conditions.

Housing construction is actively developing. Only this year 10.1 million square meters of new housing will be commissioned.

The country is actively developing social infrastructure. Over 1,300 new hospitals and polyclinics, 500 new kindergartens and 1,400 schools have been built.

Under the Bolashak program initiated by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan N.A. Nazarbayev, more than 12,500 young citizens of the country were trained in 200 of the best world universities in 35 countries.

Every year an average of 270 thousand new jobs are created.

Over the past 15 years, the average salary and pensions in Kazakhstan have increased by more than 10 times.

According to the official data of the International Association of Pension and Social Funds, the minimum and average pensions in Kazakhstan are higher than in Kyrgyzstan by 5 and 3 times respectively.

The average life expectancy in our country has increased to 72.3 years.

Regarding the tariffs for services, I would like to note that at present, a new model aimed at updating and modernizing fixed assets taking into account the balancing of the interests of subjects of natural monopolies and consumers is being implemented in Kazakhstan. At the same time, it is obvious that the tariffs for electricity generated by hydroelectric power stations are lower than the tariffs for electricity received using fossil energy sources.

Realizing the strategic vision of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan N.A. Nazarbayev, we created a new capital – Astana. Over $50 billion was invested in the development of the capital. Today the population of Astana has exceeded 1 million citizens.

This year for the first time in the entire CIS, the Expo-2017 International Specialized Exposition "Future Energy" was held in Astana. More than 115 states and 22 international organizations took part in it. For the period of the exhibition, about 4 million tourists visited it.

Due to the economic strength of the state, stability, favorable investment climate, the largest transnational corporations work in all sectors of the economy of Kazakhstan. The total volume of foreign direct investments for the years of independence reached $265 billion.

In 2000, the President of the country established the National Fund of the Republic of Kazakhstan. To date, the total volume of the National Fund and the gold and foreign exchange reserves of Kazakhstan is about $91 billion. Sustainable economic development, progressive growth of the country's GDP, allows Kazakhstan to provide all kinds of assistance to the partner countries.

The Republic of Kazakhstan pursues a consistent policy of strengthening fraternal and neighborly relations with the Kyrgyz Republic in the spirit of the Treaty on Eternal Friendship of April 8, 1997, and the Treaty on Allied Relations of December 25, 2003.

All these years, Kazakhstan has always been close to the Kyrgyz people, especially in difficult times was sympathetic to the requests of the leadership of Kyrgyzstan, maximally assisted in resolving pressing social and economic problems and provided significant humanitarian assistance, including energy supplies, food and other socially important goods provision.

Within the framework of Kyrgyzstan's accession to the Eurasian Economic Union, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan decided to provide technical assistance in the amount of $100 million. Currently, the Agreement on the provision of technical assistance has been ratified by the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

More than $20 million has already been allocated for humanitarian assistance to Kyrgyzstan, two general education schools in Bishkek and Osh have been built.

The volume of Kazakhstan investments in the economy of Kyrgyzstan amounted to $820 million. Thanks to this, thousands of Kyrgyz citizens are provided with jobs.

At the same time, the volume of investments could be more, but its growth is constrained by the unfavorable investment climate with regard to Kazakhstani entrepreneurs.

125 thousand labor migrants are registered and they live in Kazakhstan. At the same time, they are fully provided with social and medical guarantees from our state.

Thanks to the position of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan N.A. Nazarbayev, the share of Kyrgyzstan in the distribution of revenues from import customs duties between the budgets of the member states of the EurAsEC is 1.9%. This has resulted in a sharp increase in revenues to the budget of the Kyrgyz Republic since joining the EurAsEC.

Income in 2016 amounted to $187.4 million, which exceeds the indicators of Kyrgyzstan before joining the EurAsEC more than 3 times.

In accordance with the Agreement between the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic on the application of the procedure for regulating access to rail transport services, including the basics of tariff policy, the Kyrgyz Republic applies a unified railway tariff from January 10, 2017, which is 8 months earlier than stipulated in the Agreement on Accession of the Kyrgyz Republic. For the period of early application of the tariff, Kazakhstan's direct losses amounted to about $49 million, which is correspondingly a benefit for the economy of Kyrgyzstan.

It should be noted that the Kyrgyz side made commitments to bring the sanitary, veterinary and phytosanitary systems in line with the requirements of the EurAsEC, which have not yet been implemented. This carries risks for the Kazakhstani market and the integration association, as a whole. Despite this, the Kazakhstani side adopted a set of measures aimed at facilitating the access of Kyrgyz agricultural products to the Kazakh market and its transit through the territory of Kazakhstan.

The list of goods transported through Kazakhstan territory from Kyrgyzstan to Russia has been expanded considerably – up to 100 groups of goods.

Veterinary and phytosanitary quarantine posts will be equipped with Kazakh technical assistance funds in the amount of $100 million, quarantine and veterinary laboratories, a center for registration and certification of veterinary drugs will be built and equipped.

The customs bodies of the Republic of Kazakhstan record a sharp increase in imports of Chinese goods to the Kyrgyz Republic and a proportional increase in the import of similar goods from the Kyrgyz Republic to Kazakhstan, which is due to inefficient customs administration. Nevertheless, the Kazakh side does not apply any restrictive measures to Kyrgyz goods.

Obliged commitments to ensure the free movement of Kyrgyz goods are fully ensured by Kazakhstan, despite the available facts of re-export of Chinese goods. The estimated losses of the EurAsEC member states are about $100 million, and Kazakhstan's losses on VAT are $155.8 million.

Moreover, we do not apply export customs duties on a number of goods, important for Kyrgyzstan, despite the fact that we are aware of the facts of re-export of these goods from the territory of Kyrgyzstan (oil and oil products, scraps of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, animal skins and wool, etc.).

All of the above is a far from complete list of aspects of bilateral cooperation between our countries.

In conclusion, despite the repeated speculations of the President of Kyrgyzstan A. Atambayev, the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan intends to further deepen and expand the Kazakh-Kyrgyz strategic partnership and cooperation.