Mazhilis Meeting Spotlights Measures to Attract Foreign Investment
ASTANA – Mazhilis Committee on International Affairs, Defense and Security hosted the expanded meeting on attracting foreign investment in Kazakhstan’s economy on March 14, reported the Mazhilis’ press service.
Photo credit: Mazhilis
In opening the meeting, the Committee’s Chairwoman Aigul Kuspan emphasized that Kazakhstan presents new opportunities and considerable prospects for profitable investment today.
According to Deputy Foreign Minister Nazira Nurbayeva, the country has approved 68 investment programs to attract foreign investors to critical sectors of the economy. This year, nearly 40 investment projects with foreign capital worth more than $1.5 billion are expected to be commissioned.
Photo credit: Mazhilis
According to the ministry, the Unified Pool of Investment Projects comprises 609 projects worth around 25.4 trillion tenge (US$56.3 billion) and creating more than 115,000 new jobs. Of these, 106 projects worth 14 trillion tenge (US$31 billion) are being implemented with the participation of foreign investors and 503 projects worth 11.2 trillion tenge (US$24.8 billion) with local ones.
In 2023, Kazakhstan launched 47 investment projects with foreign capital worth $1.1 billion and nearly 5,200 new jobs.
In January-September 2023, the largest volume of foreign direct investments (FDI) was recorded in the mining industry—$8.6 billion, the manufacturing industry—$3.9 billion, wholesale and retail trade—$3.8 billion, transport and warehousing—$855 million, and construction—$413 million.
“At the political level, work is in progress to build beneficial relations with the main investor countries by concluding agreements on the promotion and mutual protection of investments. To date, nearly 30 rounds of negotiations have been held to discuss the texts of agreements with counterparties from China, Indonesia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and Türkiye,” said Nurbayeva.
According to her, the ministry plans to sign relevant agreements with Canada, India, Indonesia, Italy and the United States.
Deputy Head of the Public Interest Protection Service of the General Prosecutor’s Office Rizat Smagulov spoke about developing new tools for systematically solving the problems of investors, including the introduction of preferential conditions with the reduced time for obtaining permits and the number of approvals from government bodies. The conditions for the provision of land and communications will also be simplified.
“Digitalization is the second priority measure, allowing real-time monitoring of all processes – from attracting investments to commissioning of the project. The process of implementing investment projects will become transparent with up-to-date information about investors. In case of violations and administrative barriers, the IT system will forward them to the Foreign Ministry and the prosecutor,” he said.
The platform is scheduled to be put into operation by April 30.
Last week, Kazakh Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov urged state agencies to streamline investment procedures and reduce barriers.
