Meeting of Vice-Minister of Trade and Integration Kairat Balykbayev with the population and business representatives of Ulytau region

Vice Minister of Trade and Integration Kairat Balykbayev, as well as Chairman of the Trade Committee Aidar Abildabekov came to Ulytau region to meet with the population, business representatives and inspected a number of trade facilities.

Ulytau Oblast was established in 2022 in accordance with the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The economy of the region is determined by industry, the main share of which is concentrated on the production of non-ferrous and rare-earth metals, which is also the main indicator of its socio-economic condition and development.

Representatives of the Ministry visited the wholesale and distribution centre «Uly dala». The wholesale distribution centre consists of three terminals: for storage of groceries with the possibility of storing up to 11 cars of cereals, flour, as well as two terminals with cold rooms for storage of sausages, cheese, meat and fish. The entrepreneur plans to soon open a shop for the production of meat semi-finished products and launch a vegetable storage facility with an estimated capacity of up to 10,000 tonnes of products.

The next place visited was the «Ulytau Nan» bakery in Zhezkazgan with a production capacity of 20 tonnes per day and the Samadi mart hypermarket, which offers a wide range of goods (over 50,000 food items).

At the meeting with the population Kairat Balykbayev spoke about the work carried out by the Ministry of Trade and Integration in the light of the implementation of the Address of the Head of State «Economic Course of Fair Kazakhstan». The main directions are: increasing trade turnover with Central Asia, China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and the EU, bringing the volume of non-resource exports to 46.5 billion dollars, the creation of 5 border hubs and other measures.

The Vice-Minister was approached by an entrepreneur with a request to open an accredited food laboratory in the region.

Kairat Balykbayev said that until 2018 in Zhezkazgan operated a branch of JSC «NACEKS», but closed due to lack of staff.

«Moreover, organs and laboratories are private enterprise entities. To establish them, business looks at economic feasibility and return on investment. There is a need to make large investments for the purchase of imported equipment, salaries, utility costs, etc. At the same time, according to the information of KF JSC «NACEKS», if there is a human resource potential, will consider the possibility of creating OPS and laboratories. This applies not only to food products», - said Kairat Balykbayev.

«In 2022, in order to restrain prices for socially important group of food products and their stabilisation, in particular for bread of the first grade, I was allocated flour from the stabilisation fund under the Karaganda region. However, in the current year such flour from the stabilisation fund of the region is not allocated to me. Kairat Takirovich, you can assist in solving the issue», - Aset Shaikimbayev, the owner of a mini-bakery, appealed to the Vice-Minister.

Kairat Balykbaev noted that according to the information of the akimat of Ulytau region social flour is available. Entrepreneurial entity should submit an application to the city akimat, which, in turn, will send to the regional akimat.

«As a result, a memorandum is concluded between the Akimat and the business entity to provide a certain volume of social bread to the domestic market at a fixed reduced price», - replied the Vice Minister of Trade and Integration.

At the end of the meeting Kairat Balykbayev answered questions from media representatives.