Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov took part in an expanded meeting of the faction of the AMANAT party, during which he informed the deputies about the implementation of previous messages of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

In his speech Prime Minister noted that these program documents are aimed at improving the welfare and quality of life of Kazakhstanis.

"The implementation of instructions was conducted in difficult conditions and with constantly emerging external and internal challenges. Nevertheless, the set tasks were generally realized, and long-term and systematic instructions continue to be executed," he said.

Thus, the Government has taken systemic measures in the social sphere. The Social Code has been approved, which provides support for citizens from birth to old age. For social support of families with children, the period of care up to 1.5 years has been increased, benefits for mothers with many children have been raised. Today, more than 750 thousand mothers receive this assistance.

"From September 1, free meals will be provided to children from 1st to 4th grades of general education schools. Also this year the issue of free meals in kindergartens for 97 thousand children from socially vulnerable families has been resolved. Thus, the state has assumed the costs of preschool education for this category of children," Alikhan Smailov noted.

On the instructions of the Head of State, social allowances were increased by 23% for people with disabilities and those who have lost their breadwinner. Differential increase of pensions of more than 2 million pensioners was made. In general, the state's expenditures on the pension program today amount to more than 3 trillion tenge.

In addition, on the instructions of the Head of State, the retirement age of women was fixed at 61 years until 2028. Related additional expenditures on pension provision will amount to more than 800 billion tenge.

Along with this, this year citizens have been given the right to manage their pension savings. Depositors can transfer to private management companies, chosen by them independently, 50% of the amount of their pension savings. In general, more than 1 million people have exercised their right to use their pension savings to improve their living conditions and medical treatment.

Since the beginning of this year, the Government has introduced the Digital Family Card. More than 500 thousand Kazakhstanis have received proactive social support.

A Comprehensive Employment Plan is being implemented jointly with the regions as part of the Program for Increasing the Income of the Population. Currently, more than 600,000 people have been employed in new, vacant and state-subsidized jobs, half of them young people.

"The President's instruction on employment of young people and socially vulnerable population occupies a special place. The age of youth has been increased from 29 to 35, which opens access to state support measures for 5.7 million people. During this year about 9 thousand of them, including socially vulnerable, received soft loans at 2.5%, grants and were able to open their own businesses," Alikhan Smailov said.

As Prime Minister noted, the task has also been set to increase 2-fold the salaries of 1.2 million civil servants. In this regard, salaries of teachers are annually increased by 25%, doctors by 30%, nurses and other categories of workers by 20%.

At the same time, work has been carried out with about 2,000 enterprises, as a result of which employers have increased the salaries of more than 1 million employees by 10 to 50%.

Financing of secondary education has more than doubled over the past 5 years alone, from 2 to 4.5 trillion tenge.

The National Project "Comfortable School" has been launched, under which 369 schools will be built. In addition, an Education Infrastructure Support Fund has been created to accumulate funds returned to the state as part of anti-corruption measures. To date, the Fund has received 120 billion tenge, of which 97 billion tenge has been allocated for the construction of 62 schools.

The number of educational grants in domestic universities increases annually. This year, out of 88 thousand allocated grants, 73 thousand were awarded to this year's school graduates.

"More than 380 thousand students have their stipends increased from tomorrow. Only for the last 3 years the cost per student has increased on average from 420 thousand almost to 1 million tenge," Prime Minister emphasized.

Providing students with dormitories is also an important issue. Since 2020, 10 thousand places for students are introduced annually. Under the program of state subsidies for the construction of dormitories 99 objects have already been commissioned, this year it is planned to open 32 more.

At the same time, from September 1, non-resident students from certain categories of socially vulnerable groups will be reimbursed for living expenses.

Also, starting from the new academic year the salaries of teaching staff of higher educational institutions will be increased by 20%.

Head of the Government noted that the republic has begun to reboot the model of science management. The National Council on Science and Technology and the National Academy of Sciences under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan have been created. Special attention is paid to the commercialization of the results of scientific research of Kazakhstani scientists.

In general, in 2023-2025, the volume of financing of science will amount to 643 billion tenge. Of these, 149 billion tenge have been allocated already this year, which is 3.5 times more than last year's level. 

"Last year, the labor remuneration of 1,700 leading scientists was increased by 70%. Every year young scientists began to be provided with 500 grants for internships in the leading scientific centers of the world. In addition, 11 research institutes engaged in fundamental research were transferred to direct state funding," Alikhan Smailov said.

According to him, the issues of quality and accessibility of medical care are under special control.

In particular, the issue of providing rehabilitation assistance to children with neurological diseases has been resolved. Today, 55 medical organizations provide such services, 27 of which have been introduced in the last 2 years. 

In order to provide the industry with qualified personnel, the state order for residency training has been increased by 70%. This year alone it has been increased by 1000 grants.

805 billion tenge has been allocated from the republican budget over the last 3 years to increase the salaries of medical workers.

"This year the implementation of the National project "Modernization of rural health care" was launched. Within its framework, 655 primary health care facilities will be built and 32 inter-district hospitals will be modernized. This will allow to cover more than 4 million rural residents with specialized medical care," Prime Minister said.

At the same time, the construction of 2 out of 8 planned regional multidisciplinary and university clinics with the use of public-private partnership mechanism has been launched.

Concluding his speech on the social block, Prime Minister emphasized that a powerful incentive for the development of domestic production of medicines was the strengthening of cooperation with a major global pharmaceutical industry from TOP-50 BIGPHARMA. Thus, agreements on localization of production of drugs in Kazakhstan have been signed with Pfizer and Roshe.

Within the framework of state support, 98 long-term agreements with 36 domestic manufacturers for the supply of medicines and medical devices are currently in force.

"This year, out of 1.6 thousand trade names of drugs purchased, 947 items, i.e. 61%, were produced by domestic pharmaceutical companies," Alikhan Smailov concluded.

#Alikhan Smailov #The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan