Kazakhstan to simplify issuing permission to migrant workers
By Aynur Jafarova
Kazakhstan will simplify procedures for issuing permission to migrant laborers working for individuals, local Kazakh media has reported.
The law "On amendments and additions to some legislative acts of Kazakhstan on the issues of labor migration" was signed by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in December, 2013.
The law will take effect from February 2014.
The document covers citizens of countries having visa-free entry and residing agreements with Kazakhstan.
Thus, from now on every Kazakh citizen will have an opportunity to invite no more than five migrant laborers. Guest workers themselves will be obliged to pay about 3,704 tenges to the state treasury.
Under the new rules, migrant laborers will be required to get a personal identification number. After a year the guest workers will have to leave the country. They will be able to return to Kazakhstan only after a month, if during the first visit to the country they filled in the declaration and affirmed their incomes.
Every migrant laborer should have a bank account with enough money to return home.
Earlier, officials from Kazakh Interior Ministry noted the new law will legalize labor migration and bring it out of the "shadow" sector.
The labor market of Kazakhstan is attractive for migrants from neighboring Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Russia. Some 174,000 migrant laborers came to Kazakhstan in 2013, and 128,000 of them are the citizens of the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
The Kazakh Labor Ministry has forecasted that migrants inflow to Kazakhstan will hit 500,000 in 2015.
Experts believe migrants' flow to Kazakhstan is mainly due to the country's economic growth being higher than that in other Central Asian countries.