Today in Astana, the Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev spoke at an expanded meeting of the Presidium of the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan.

Chairman of the Presidium of the Atameken NCE Timur Kulibayev also spoke at the meeting. Chairman of the Board of the NCE, Ablay Myrzakhmetov, members of the Management Board, deputy chairmen of the NCE Board, Rustam Zhursunov and Tulemis Shotanov made reports on the work of the Chamber for 2017, priority areas for 2018 and the program to improve business competitiveness, commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan, Bolat Palymbetov, spoke about the measures taken to protect the rights of entrepreneurs.

During the discussion, questions were raised and proposals were made to improve the legislation in the sphere of public-private partnership, measures of state financial support for business, participation in state and quasi-public purchases, development of import substitution, digitization and automation of public services, and training of personnel for the Third Modernization.

In his speech, Bakytzhan Sagintayev outlined the main areas of joint activity, as well as gave answers to questions that arose during the dialogue.

The development of entrepreneurship is the main priority of the Government. This is the main line of work to create a new model of the country's economic growth. A lot of work is being done to implement the task set by the Head of the State to the Government and the business community to ensure that by 2050, at least 50% contribution of small and medium businesses in the country's GDP.

The Government is systematically working to deregulate business, stimulate business activity of SMEs and improve measures to support domestic business.

The Prime Minister said that in the framework of working trips to the regions of the country, meetings were held with members of the regional Chamber of Entrepreneurs. A list of systemic questions has been formed, which consists of about 500 questions. At present, about 400 of them have been solved, on the rest of them, the work is in progress.

Regarding the training of personnel, Bakytzhan Sagintayev noted that the processes of technological renewal had begun in the country. Large enterprises are embarking on modernization. Specialists should be trained on the basis of these challenges. There is already a college in Atyrau, where specialists are trained with knowledge of foreign languages. The government intends to open one such specialized college in each regional center next year. Starting next year, 20 such colleges are to start working.

Bakytzhan Sagintayev expressed the Government's readiness for further constructive work with the business community in all spheres.

"The government is ready for an open dialogue and joint work with the business community. We have only one way - to enter the world's top thirty leaders by 2050," the Prime Minister summed up

Following the discussion, the Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev instructed to create a working group to study the issues raised at the meeting. In December of this year, it is planned to hear the first report on the work done on the results of the meeting.

For reference: Today, the number of licenses and permits has been reduced by more than three times (from 1200 to 316). Audit of control and supervisory functions has been performed. 25 out of 114 spheres of control and 3 of 18 spheres of supervision are to be excluded. More than 17.6 thousand requirements for the verification of SMEs has been reduced.

As part of the provision of financial support, about 13,000 SME projects have been funded for a total of more than 800 billion tenge.

With the aim of liberalizing healthcare and education, 29 obsolete and duplicative sanitary rules have been abolished, the next stage is to cancel more than 30 obsolete rules. The work done will make it possible to free 34500 objects from inspections under a special order, and to reduce the number of inspections by 1.7 times.

The privatization procedure has been simplified. The priority right to purchase a stake in LLP with the participation of the state or a quasi-public sector has been eliminated. In the field of public procurement, a mechanism has been developed to support domestic producers. The list of goods, works, and services purchased through the single organizer from domestic producers has been expanded.

On behalf of the Head of the State, an Open Digital Business Platform is to be created within the Digital Kazakhstan program. All state support measures will be integrated into the platform.