At the government session chaired by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov, measures were considered to fulfill the instructions of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, which were given at an expanded meeting of the Government on Feb. 8. 2022. Minister of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan Alibek Kuantyrov reported on the implementation of instructions in the field of economic development of the country.

In order to stabilize the socio-economic and socio-political situation in the country since the beginning of January this year. The head of state gave 140 operational and systemic instructions. To date, 44 orders have been completed. There are 32 assignments at the completion stage.

At the enlarged meeting of the Government, the Head of State set specific tasks to improve the welfare and income of the population, reduce inequality and create jobs, attract investment, and develop small and medium-sized businesses.

Within the framework of these tasks, the Ministry of National Economy is assigned 5 assignments:

• development of a Program to increase the income of the population;
• development of a set of measures to control and reduce inflation;
• reforming NCE Atameken with a focus on supporting, protecting and developing small businesses;
• analysis of the effectiveness of the program "Economy of Simple Things»;
• multiple increase in mining tax.

As part of the execution of the instruction to develop a Program to increase the income of the population, an analysis of the labor market, indicators of living standards and poverty, the structure of income and expenditures of the population was carried out. Based on the results of the analysis, the main reasons hindering the improvement of the welfare of the population were identified.

“In order to eliminate the identified problems, the program will be aimed at implementing comprehensive measures in 4 areas: increasing the income of the population from labor activity; increase in income from entrepreneurial activity; creation of high-performance jobs; improving the skills of the workforce,” the Minister of National Economy noted.

As part of the development of the Program for Increasing the Income of the Population, measures are being worked out to reduce the additional expenses of the population for the payment of commissions and tariffs of various intermediaries and monopoly operators.

According to Kuantyrov, today the Government has already taken prompt measures to reduce tariffs for the provision of access roads. Thus, the tariffs for the Transport Service Center JSC, which is a major balance holder of access roads, have been reduced by 92%. Also, tariffs for Arman Kala Limited LLP, which provides services for the provision of access roads in the Pavlodar region, have been reduced by 93%.

“This measure will reduce the burden on the cost of coal produced by Bogatyr Komir LLP. In addition, from Feb. 1 2022, for 21 entities providing access road services in a number of regions of the country, tariffs have been reduced by an average of 80%. This measure will eliminate the negative effect on the cost of thermal coal and on prices for socially important goods,” the Minister of National Economy explained.

In order to prevent price increases, on behalf of the Head of State, the Ministry, together with interested state bodies, developed a set of measures to control and reduce inflation for 2022-2024. It consists of 61 operational and medium-term measures aimed at increasing production volumes, storage and logistics, retail trade, price control, antimonopoly and foreign trade regulation.

The goal of implementing the Set of Measures to Control and Reduce Inflation is to keep inflation in the 4-6% corridor in 2022 and reduce it to 3-4% by 2025.

The set of measures contains measures in the areas of "Increase in production volumes", "Storage and logistics of goods", "Retail trade in goods", "Pricing control, antimonopoly and foreign trade regulation».

As Kuantyrov noted, these measures include the adoption of the Plan for ensuring food security, ensuring the workload of stabilization funds, reducing rents for socially significant food products providers, curbing the growth of prices for socially significant food products, fuels and lubricants, coal, electricity, medicines, etc.

As part of systemic measures, it is planned to reduce the number of unproductive intermediaries in the fuel and lubricants market. In order to support socially vulnerable segments of the population, the practice of separating them into a separate group when paying utility bills will be introduced.

“As part of the execution of the instructions of the Head of State to reform the activities of NCE Atameken, it is planned to conduct a functional analysis of the activities of the chamber. Based on the results of this work, the activities of the NCE will be reoriented to support, protection and development of SMEs. For this, appropriate amendments to the legislation on the activities of NCE Atameken will be developed. This will become an additional institutional tool in the formation of a strong and competitive small and medium-sized business,” said the Minister of National Economy.

Based on the analysis of the effectiveness of the Economy of Simple Things program, a preliminary assessment was carried out. She showed that 1 tenge of subsidies to support participants in the Program in 2020 contributed to the production of 40 tenge of products and the payment of 3 tenge of taxes.

Over the two years of the program implementation, products worth 1.4 trillion tenge were produced and taxes in the amount of 136 billion tenge were paid. At the same time, 54 thousand jobs were created and saved for the period from 2019 to 2021.

“A full analysis for 2021 will be carried out by July 2022 after receiving data on taxes paid and the output and turnover of program participants. Specific decisions on making changes to the program will be proposed based on the results of this work,” Kuantyrov said.

In addition, in order to fulfill the order to multiply the tax on mining, the Ministry is developing appropriate approaches.

“Today, about 640 MW of electrical power is consumed by officially registered mining companies (white mining). At the same time, the consumption of shadow mining requires official registration. At the same time, mining companies consume electricity directly from energy producing organizations or from unregulated energy supply organizations. The main reason for this is the attractiveness of the tariff,” said Kuantyrov.

In this regard, the Ministry proposes to consider the issue of identifying a separate group of consumers of energy-producing organizations in order to establish higher tariffs for them than other consumer groups.