B. Sagintayev: Almaty is open to investments

The head of the city spoke about the main opportunities for investing in the development of the metropolis. Bakytzhan Sagintayev, in his welcoming speech, noted that one third of Kazakhstan’s largest taxpayer companies, more than 30 multinational companies, 86% of bank headquarters, 43% of joint ventures and large international organizations are based in Almaty. Almaty is the most developed metropolis of Central Asia with an economy of $ 36 billion.

“We set ourselves the long-term goal of becoming a global city and entering the top 100 cities in terms of quality of life and economic opportunities. The population of Almaty, together with its suburbs, is now approaching three million, and by 2030 it could reach five million”, B. Sagintayev said.

He also added that the implementation of the three-year plan “New Almaty” on the development of the outskirts to city standards will require about 800 billion tenge of budgetary and private investments, which will provide tax increases for the implementation of urban initiatives and increase the welfare of Almaty residents. In addition, the Almaty Akimat plans to cooperate with the Investment Development Fund, which operates in the AIFC. B. Sagintayev noted, that together, with the government a package of measures is being implemented to reduce administrative barriers and simplify registration and business processes.

“In Almaty, due to the state budget, a unique infrastructure has been created in the Industrial Zone, and tax and other preferences are provided in the FEZ“ Park of Innovative Technologies”, the city akim said.

It is worth noting, that in the metropolis, there are a number of measures of consulting and financial support for business. For example, the Qoldaý Entrepreneurship Center provides one-stop public services to the business, as well as free consulting services. The “Almaty Finance” company and the microfinance organization “Almaty” issue soft loans with interest rates from 2% to 7% to support small and medium-sized businesses.

“In general, next year we plan to increase the amount of financial support for SMEs by almost three times, from the current 11.5 billion tenge to 30 billion. In the future, we will adjust support measures based on the analytical base for decision-making, including on the basis of the Akimat situation center and Big Data, ”the head of the metropolis emphasized. According to him, promising areas for potential investors could be the sphere of processing and processing of goods, transport and logistics services, tourism. Particular attention should be paid to the creative economy, which has great potential for creating the latest production in this creative field.

Kazakhstan Financial Forum - a platform for discussing consumer protection issues, AIFC business opportunities. The purpose of the forum is to inform the basics of investing and the conditions for doing business in the AIFC, as well as protecting consumers of financial services. The event’s speakers included AIFC experts in the field of regulation of financial services, financial technologies, issuance of green and Islamic bonds, investment in the securities market, as well as continuous professional development.