Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Kazakhstan is firmly committed to boosting its economic power in the coming years.

Real economic growth in the country in 2015-2019 is estimated at 5- 6.6 percent, while the nominal GDP growth is expected to reach 70.3 trillion tenge (around 385 $billion) in 2019.

Export is expected to grow from $78.1 billion in 2015 to $92 billion in 2019, while import is forecasted to increase from $50.5 billion in 2015 to $56.1 billion, Kazakh Economy and Budget Planning Ministry said.

With key priorities in maintaining macroeconomic and financial stability, sustainable economic growth, and social modernization of society, Kazakhstan has improved its investment attractiveness as well.

The country ranked 50 among 189 countries in the World Bank's 'Doing Business-2014' rating, leaving most of the CIS countries behind.

Experts believe Kazakhstan is in the list of countries with high level of inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI). This is proved by huge economic figures. In particular, the total volume of the FDI invested in the Kazakh economy amounted to $180 billion in 2013.

Netherlands, Germany, the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Russia, China, Canada, Switzerland, and Japan were among the top investors in the country in 2013.

Kazakhstan's main trade partners were the European Union (EU) countries (41 percent), Russia (17.9 percent), China (17 percent), Switzerland (4.1 percent), and Ukraine (3.3 percent), leading to $132 billion in trade turnover in 2013.

Kazakhstan has also adopted a geological exploration program for 2015-2019, according to which the country plans to allocate 119 billion tenge (around $654 million) from the state budget to conducting geological survey in the country.

Officials believe that this program will increase gold, copper, and complex ores forecast resources.

The country also intends to attract large national companies and subsoil users to invest in geological exploration.

These are not the final steps towards improving the country's investment climate. Kazakhstan plans to take several measures, including establishing unilateral visa-free requirements for most developed countries for a period of 90 days, providing investor visas for the heads of structural departments in foreign companies, introducing the one-stop shop principle for investors, and creating an investment ombudsman institute.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has instructed the government to adopt a law aimed at attracting a new wave of investments.

A draft law on improving the investment climate, which is expected to be introduced at the Kazakh parliament before June 1, 2014, includes a new format of contracts with investors, describing the government's support measures in details.

The measures include compensating up to 30 percent of the investment costs by the state after commissioning a facility, being exempt from corporate income tax, and the long-term order of goods and services of investors by national holdings and companies and governmental bodies.