Minister of National Economy Timur Suleimenov reported on the development of competition in the country at the meeting of the Government chaired by the Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev.

As Timur Suleimenov noted, in 2017, 108 laws and 972 bylaws were audited to identify rules that hinder competition. As a result of the audit of the above-mentioned legislative acts, 144 norms that prevented competition were identified.

The most drastic measures to reduce business costs were aimed at deregulating the business; reduction of a number of paid public services, services of monopolies and quasi-public enterprises or the reduction in their cost; revision of rates of individual taxes and mandatory payments to the budget (fees); abolition of excessive requirements imposed on business entities when exercising state control and supervision, or when they receive permits; optimization of information tools; regulation of the issuance of technical conditions for connection to engineering networks of natural monopoly entities.

Amendments were made to the relevant legislative acts, which were reflected in the draft law "On Amendments and Additions to Certain Legislative Acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Improving Business Regulation." At present, this draft law is being considered in the Majilis of the Parliament.

In order to consolidate the principles of the Yellow Pages Rule, the Comprehensive Plan for Privatization for 2016-2020 was approved, which originally included 734 objects subject to privatization. In 2016-2017, in fact, 367 objects (amounting to 164 billion tenge) were transferred to the competitive environment from the 902 objects envisaged by the Comprehensive Privatization Plan.

In November 2017, as part of the actualization of the List of Activities, the Ministry sent proposals to the Government on the exclusion of 65 types of activities following the analysis of commodity markets. The measures taken to reduce the state's participation in entrepreneurial activities will be continued, within the framework of the implementation of the Address of the Head of State to the people of Kazakhstan on January 10, 2018, "New Opportunities Under the Fourth Industrial Revolution."

"At present, the Ministry has established a working group to determine the list of state institutions and subjects of the quasi-public sector for transfer to the competitive environment or liquidation, as well as their consolidation. Information on the results of the work of the group will be submitted to the Government in three stages: in April, May and June 2018," Timur Suleimenov said.

In the field of competition protection, the number of completed investigations in 2017 was 212, of which 187 investigations were completed with the identification of violations in the field of competition protection. In total, in 2017, fines were imposed for the amount of 2.01 billion tenge, of which 594 million tenge was collected. At present, 81 investigations of violations of the law in the field of competition protection are being conducted, in particular, on the primary and secondary wholesale and retail coal markets; in the market of retail fuel sales.

In 2016, the Kazakhstan antimonopoly authority was admitted as a participant in the OECD Competition Committee. In 2018, a visit of OECD experts is planned to analyze the practical application of changes introduced in 2015-2016 in the antimonopoly legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In 2019, a large-scale review of the OECD on competition law and policy is planned.

A. Myrzakhmetov, Chairman of the Board of Atameken NCE shared with his opinion on the discussed issue.

Deputy Prime Minister E. Dossaev was instructed at the working level to supervise the execution of the instructions of the Head of State for the development of competition.