Prior to the meeting President Nursultan Nazarbayev looked around the EXPO construction site of the national pavilion of Kazakhstan, international thematic and corporate pavilions, as well as trade and entertainment centres.
Addressing the meeting participants, Nursultan Nazarbayev noted that the issues of Astana’s development are in the focus of the government’s attention.
EXPO-2017 will be an important milestone in the development of our capital city. I have just visited the construction site of the exhibition. The construction is under time pressure, however in line with the schedule. Today, nearly 10,000 workers are involved in the construction of EXPO facilities,” he said.
The President stressed that in the last year alone the GRP rate of Astana was the highest in the country, reaching 5% and ensuring 40% of the entire economy of Kazakhstan.
Much has been done to attract investment. In general, from the date Astana became the capital of Kazakhstan the volume of investments has exceeded 6 trillion tenge, out of which 2 trillion were allocated from the state budget. At that, the amount of tax revenue has already exceeded 4 trillion tenge. As you can see, the cost of construction of Astana has already been paid off. Moreover, last year the capital city put more than 900 billion tenge into the state buget. It is important to note that 75 percent of all revenues come from small and medium-sized businesses, which provide half of all job opportunities in the city. This is the level that every region of Kazakhstan should reach,” he said.
Nursultan Nazarbayev noted that in 2015 over 18,000 new jobs were created in the city, while the unemployment rate was the lowest in the country and accounted for 4.7 percent.
Over the years, 150 social facilities have been built in Astana, the new university has received international accreditation. A modern cluster-based medical holding is functioning to provide quality services to the population. The average life expectancy has reached 75 years, and all regions of our country should work to ensure similar figures. The average monthly wage in Astana exceeds 190,000 tenge. In general, we are going to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Independence of our country with rather good results,” he said.
The head of state noted that the city’s population is expected to reach 1 million people by the time of EXPO-2017. Nursultan Nazarbayev also outlined major tasks to ensure further development of Astana, including the necessity to strengthen the capital’s economy.
The establishment of special economic zone has positively influenced the development of Astana. At the moment, a number of large-scale projects are being implemented on the territory of special economic zone, including the refinery, the company for the production of passenger cars, locomotives, military equipment, as well as LED and optical devices and others,” he said.
The meeting also addressed ways to improve business environment in Astana.
A favorable business environment has been created in Astana. Banks are displaying a great interest in business sector. At the same time we are implementing a good project to provide entrepreneurs with thousand places for the opening of modern retail outlets. The first outlets selling domestic products have opened their doors in Astana. However, only two types of business have been developing in the city, which are trade and construction. Small and medium-sized businesses are underrepresented in the innovation sphere,” he said.
Among other speakers at the meeting were Mayor of Astana Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, Chairman of Board of JSC Astana EXPO-2017 Akhmetzhan Yessimov, Minister of Energy Kairat Bozumbayev, Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov and Head of the Astana International Financial Centre Kairat Kelimbetov.
At the end of the meeting President Nursultan Nazarbayev charged responsible authorities with a number of specific tasks.