Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Kazakhstan intends to establish a visa-free regime for economically and politically stable countries.

The news was announced by Kazakh Deputy Minister of Industry and New Technologies Nurlan Sauranbayev, Trend Agency reported.

Sauranbayev noted the aim of this step is to develop tourism in the country.

"The concept for development of tourism until 2020 has been submitted to the government. This document contains a list of necessary amendments to the regulatory framework. These amendments are about the cancellation of the visa regime for the citizens of economically and politically stable countries," he said.

Sauranbayev went on to add that Kazakhstan has every opportunity to develop tourism.

"The prospective rapidly growing markets - China, Russia, India and the Middle East - are close to us and they show interest in our country. We need only to open the borders, create more qualitative tourism products and to pursue a more intensive marketing policy," Sauranbayev said.

He noted the concept also envisages the establishment of special tourism zones, as well as conditions for the development of internal transport market.

"If we want to develop tourism, we need to review our approaches to this sphere. Tourism should be a priority sector of economy. It is time to take tourism out of the social sphere," he stressed.

Sauranbayev went on to add that international experts have selected several national and regional projects, including Kok Zhailau mountain ski resort in Almaty (Capital Partners), Shchuchinsk-Borovsk resort area in Akmola province (Verny Capital), Kenderli in Mangistau province (Rixos company) and others.

Earlier Kazakhstan expressed readiness to take measures to simplify the visa system for foreigners so that they were able to attend the EXPO-2017 exhibition in Astana.

Also, the country plans to set a visa-free regime for 34 member-countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Currently, Kazakhstan has visa-free regime with such countries as, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.