Kazakhstan attracts transnational corporations

/By AzerNews/

By Laman Sadigova

Kazakhstan plans to attract at least 10 transnational corporations to the processing sector in the country.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev informed about this in the article, published by the Foreign Ministry.

“We have already had negotiations with more than 26 transnational corporations and have entered into agreements with some of them,” he wrote.

The work on establishment of joint ventures together with ‘anchor investors’ will cover 3 groups of domestic companies in processing, infrastructure, energy industries etc. The first group includes the enterprises subject to deep modernization through reinvesting. The second group consists of the enterprises which will attract the potential of trans-national corporations. And the third group is the enterprises with high market rivalry for ‘anchor investors’ and emergence of export brands

“A central issue of the third reform of the National Plan is the establishment of the “International Financial Centre “Astana” with an independent judiciary system and jurisdiction based on the principles of the British law. English will be official language of the IFCA which will also implement investment residence principle.”

The National Plan further includes the measures on development of a number of promising sectors of economy.

First, this is electric power sector and energy efficiency increase. The state needs to cut GDP energy intensity by 25% by 2020 and up to 50% by 2050.

“For this we need to attract strategic investors to our energy supply spheres through the performance contracts,” the president wrote. “It is important to boost development of private energy service companies, to enable them to supply a package of energy conservation services. Reliable supply of electricity to the consumers must be the main task for electric power sector.

To improve reliability of energy supply sector and prevent uncontrolled rise in electricity prices for final consumers, regional energy network companies and electricity supplying organizations will be integrated.”

In turn, this will create favorable conditions for attraction of investment in the sector and will allow to regulate the international cross-flow of electricity in favor of domestic consumers and will improve the quality of governmental management of the sector.

“We will continue working on formation of science-intensive economy. 65 research projects are being currently implemented in Kazakhstan together with the World Bank. The attraction of ‘anchor TNCs’ will enable us to establish the technological development centres. We plan to achieve several key indicators of the second five-year stage of the industrial-innovative development,” the president said.

The innovative activity of business will be raised by 20% of GDP, while the share of innovative products will be increased up to 2.5%.

More than 7,000 kilometers of highways will be repaired as per Nurly Zhol Program for the purpose of development of the country’s transportation and transit potential.

By 2020, the amount of passage fees will make around 41 bln tenge.