At the annual conference of entrepreneurs in Astana were indicated the main priorities of the development of capital’s business

In his speech, the Vice-Chairman of the Board of the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan "Atameken" Tulemis Shotanov noted that Astana has more than 100 thousand subjects of business, which together provide 46% of GDP. 63% of all people, contributing in the city's economy, are employed in the field of SMEs. "Generally speaking, over the last 5 years, the number of SMEs increased by half, indicating that the dynamic development of entrepreneurship in the capital", - he said.

Deputy Chairman of the Board of NCE focused on the important projects implemented in the framework of joint activities of the Chamber and Akimat. So, according to him, there was created and operates a working committee to support domestic producers, there was implemented the project "1000 trading places", master plan for the city was placed in the public domain http://www.saulet.astana.kz/, the partnership program "Recommended by EXPO-2017" is implemented in Astana. "At the same time the Chamber of entrepreneurs of Astana monitors the situation in the field of business development to identify the most key problems and possible solutions. As the results of surveys of show, the businessmen are concerned with issues of public procurement, PPP, privatization, reduction of sales, training of qualified personnel, access to infrastructure and other", - said the expert.

Speaking about the work of the committee on monitoring of local content, Shotanov said that domestic suppliers have delivered goods in the amount of 5.8 billion KZT, bringing the share of local content only for commodity items to nearly 37%. For comparison, a year earlier it was 11.8%.

Deputy Chairman of the Board of NCE also named three key procurement issues: preparation of design and estimate documentation without consideration of the possibilities of domestic producers; lack of post-tender control; lack of consideration of the proportion of local content in goods design and estimate documents (a large number of products is provided in works and services). Tulemis Shotanov sees the solution to all these problems in strengthening of the work of the commission under the akimat of Astana, close cooperation with design institutes and domestic producers, hard post-tender control of local executive bodies and Gask over the structure of domestic content in the procurement and establishment of working groups on verification of purchased and works services.

Vice-chairman of the Board of NCE named implementation of the PPP program as another key opportunity for business. According to him, "Atameken" together with the Akimat implements 13 projects with a total value - 31.5 billion tenge. However, he said, PPP projects are often not interesting for business. "Actual problems of PPP are the investment attractiveness, financial model of PPP projects, the lack of financial attractiveness of PPP (long period of return on investment) projects, financing of PPP projects", - stated Shotanov.  According to him, with the participation of the Chamber 13 expert reports were issued in 2016, there was formed a register of private partners, 4 private partners were included in the registry. Deputy Chairman of the Board of NCE believes that it is necessary to increase the investment attractiveness of the social PPP projects, for example, to provide additional grants, subsidies, etc., to foresee a step-up ratio of return on investment (adjusted for inflation), to expand the instruments of state financing of PPP projects, to provide an opportunity to provide pledge of the PPP projects under construction, to provide an option of project financing of PPP projects

"As it was pointed out in the address of the head of state, we need to pay special attention to the issues of decentralization and privatization. In this respect, a very active work is carried out in Astana. A list of 39 objects of communal property was compiled. 6 facilities in the amount of 3.5 billion tenge have been privatized. We consider it is necessary in order to ensure the interests of domestic business to expand the register of enterprises within the framework of the comprehensive privatization plan for 2016-2020, a full-scale privatization of state enterprises and the transfer of state objects in the competitive environment", - said Shotanov

As the monitoring has shown, which was conducted by the Chamber last year, business is interested in the privatization and transfer to the trust management of health and education facilities.

One of the topics that concern the business, is the access to the infrastructure, noted the representative of NCE. "An industrial park №1 was created and operates in Astana. In principle, the pace is already good, now 62 projects are already being implemented at the industrial park. Together, they attracted investments worth more than 185 billion tenge. However, as noted by residents of the industrial park, the question of central heating is still not resolved. We offer Akimats to include in the budget money for connection of central heating. In addition, the residents of the industrial park ask to consider the possibility of state orders and to support issues of import substitution and export", - he said.

Shotanov called sufficiency of highly skilled staff in these areas as a key factor for the successful development of priority sectors of the economy. He noted that in recent years Astana has faced an acute shortage of staff of technical trades in almost all sectors. There is a shortage of highly qualified personnel in the manufacturing industry, construction, trade and services. "Entrepreneurs say that there is a mismatch between graduates of our colleges and those who are needed at the market. In this regard, it proposed to take measures of economic incentives for the participants of the dual training in the city of Astana in a pilot mode. For example, if a company takes college under patronage, it allocates funds for training of masters for refitting of their classrooms, curriculum development, but they do not see compensation in the form of any preferences, including tax", - he said.

Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of "Atameken" has offered to make a rating based on the percentage of employment and tightly bind the government order to this index. "In practice, educational institutions receive the state order, but KPI is not tied to it. We also consider it is necessary to create an automated program to identify the demand for personnel. It would help us, firstly, to see an objective picture, and secondly, to immediately respond to market needs. And to delegate the powers of the employment centers to private employment agencies", - he said.

 In addition, Shotanov informed about an important project of NCEP - Regional map of business development. "The main goal that we set is to identify promising niche, in which businesses can invest. In the city of Astana, we have identified four such niches. First of all, the development of the construction cluster at the expense of large-scale construction, Second of all, innovation and high technologies – there is all the necessary infrastructure. Third of all, tourism, including medical, and, of course, financial services, on the basis of International Financial Center Astana", - he said.

Concluding his speech, Shotanov focused on non-financial business support, which is provided by NCE. "NCE is the operator of provision of consulting services. These services become more and more popular every year. On the example of Astana I would like to say that over the past year about 5 thousand entrepreneurs benefited from these services. There are two things: the quality of these services and coverage. Taking into account the status of Astana and its capabilities, we set a goal - until the end of this year to automate these services and to translate them into the online mode. We believe that in this way the two above-mentioned problems will be solved” - he concluded.