The President Nursultan Nazarbayev sent the people of Kazakhstan a message

The President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev sent the people of Kazakhstan a message “Growing welfare of Kazakh citizens: increase in income and quality of life.”

The Head of State noted that over the years of independence our country has achieved a great deal. Having created a modern progressive state with a dynamic economy, we have ensured peace and public harmony. We have made qualitative and historically significant structural, constitutional and political reforms. We have managed to strengthen the international standing of Kazakhstan and its geopolitical role in the region. We have proved to be a responsible and international partner, in-demand to address regional and global challenges.

The tasks identified by the President in the field of economy include formation of stable sources of business growing, promotion of private investment and ensuring market freedom. That is the business which creates new jobs and provides most of Kazakh people with income.

-In 2010, we launched the Business Road Map - 2020 Programme. I realised its effectiveness while visiting regions of the country. The programme should be prolonged until 2025. An additional 30 billion tenge has to be annually allocated to implement the programme. In three years this will allow the additional creation of at least 22 thousand new jobs, ensure 224 billion tenge of taxes and production of goods for an amount of 3 trillion tenge – the President charged.

Special attention in the message was paid to export-oriented industrialization, which should be a central element of economic policy. The Government must focus on supporting exporters in the manufacturing sector.

-Our trade policy needs to stop being passive. We need to make it vigorous in order to effectively promote our goods at regional and global markets. At the same time, we need to support our enterprises in developing a wide range of consumer goods and promote the so-called “simple things economy”. This is essential not only to develop export potential, but also to fill the internal market with domestic goods, - said the President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

I instruct the Government to allocate additional 500 billion tenge to support the manufacturing industry and non-commodity export in the next three years. To address the issue of affordable loans for priority projects I task the National Bank to allocate long-term tenge liquidity of no less than 600 billion tenge.

Special attention should be paid to the development of innovation and service sectors. First of all, we need to ensure the development of areas of the “future economy” such as alternative energy, new materials, biomedicine, big data, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, block chain, etc. They determine the global position and role of the country in the future.

As the Head of State noted, high-quality social services for the population should be harmoniously accompanied by the creation of ample opportunities for improvement of living conditions, comfortable and safe living in any settlement of the country.

-Today, we are successfully implementing the Nurly Zher Programme that gives a powerful impetus to the housing construction. We have launched a new large-scale programme 7-20-25 that enhances the affordability of housing mortgages. I instruct akims to work on a partial subsidising of down payments according to mortgage benefits from the local budget. The allocation of such housing certificates will enhance the affordability of mortgages for highly-skilled teachers, medical workers, police officers and other experts the region needs, - said the President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

In addition, we need to enhance the construction of rental housing for socially vulnerable population in big cities. These measures will help more than 250 thousand families to improve their housing conditions. Taking into account the construction of utility infrastructure for massive housing areas, in five years the state will help 650 thousand families or more than 2 million of our citizens.

The Head of State noted that in recent years, infrastructure of republican importance in line with the Nurly Zhol Programme has been built. Now we need to develop the regional and urban infrastructure systematically. To this end, funding has been increased this year: local roads to 150 billion tenge, rural water supply to 100 billion tenge.

-To implement practical steps, I task the draft of a pragmatic Regional Development Programme until 2025 outlining specific events, projects and financing. The above-mentioned aspects of regional development should be taken into account in Nurly Zhol and Nurly Zher state programmes, their implementation terms should also be prolonged until 2025. The first programme should focus on the development of transport infrastructure. The second one should centre on utilities and housing construction. We need to give these programmes “a new lease of life”, - emphasized the President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

The Head of State also noted that the main purpose of today’s 7-20-25, Nurly Zhol, Nurly Zher and other state programmes is the improvement of the population’s quality of life.

Read the full text of the Message to the people of Kazakhstan here.