Under the chairmanship of Timur Kulibayev, a working meeting of the Committee of the Agro-Industrial Complex of the Presidium of NCE RK "Atameken" was held

The head of the National Council noted the high importance of social issues, on which depends the stability of the country depends and the fact that the role of agriculture in the economic development of the republic, which has been repeatedly emphasized by the Head of State.
"The AIC belongs to the sector of the economy directly forming the country's food and economic security, employment and social stability of rural areas, where half the population of Kazakhstan lives. In addition, there is now a tendency to integrate urban business into rural business. There is no serious competitive strong business yet, and niches for a successful development of their business on the ground are very promising", - said the Chairman of the Presidium of the National Chamber Timur Kulibayev.

The confident growth of the country's population leads to an increase in the consumption of food products and a change in the structure of consumption towards better products. Moreover, Kazakhstan has huge sown areas in different climatic zones, which gives exceptional advantages for the production of the most diverse environmentally friendly products of the agro-industrial complex, in which neighboring countries are very interested. And the scale of the sales markets opens a huge potential for agricultural producers.

Statistics has already shown growth in investments in fixed assets. Compared to 2015, last year it increased by 47%, amounting to 253 billion KZT.

Also Timur Kulibayev noted the importance of the issue of localization of production of agricultural machinery in Kazakhstan, spare parts, attachments and the organization of due service for machinery.

The head of the Committee, Ivan Sauer, in his turn, complained about the essential miscalculations of the financial support of the program "Agrobusiness 2020". In particular, he noted that there are appeals from some entrepreneurs that they have not yet paid the due investment subsidies in 2015-2016, as well as subsidies to reduce the cost of interest on loans and leasing.

"The agricultural producers are having great hopes on the new State Program for the Development of the Agro-industrial Complex of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2017-2021, which has been developed by the order of the Head of State. It is gratifying that the proposal of NCE and the agribusiness community was heard, which two years ago spoke about raising the status of the sectoral program for the development of agriculture to the level of the state program. The proposed approaches were also supported to establish target indicators of macro-demand in the state program both on the external and internal markets, i.е. for business was set a clear vector of development with specific indicators and stimulating economic measures to achieve them - subsidies, soft loans and others", - said Ivan Sauer.

In addition, Ivan Sauer noted the policy of subsidizing. "In 2016, we managed to defend agricultural subsidies per unit of output. This approach formed the basis of the agrarian policy within the framework of the new state program, that is, per tonne of the products handed over for processing. The AIC Committee managed to preserve the right of temporary land use for the Kazakh entrepreneurs who only organized the agricultural business".

"Now agricultural producers and cooperative farms are concerned about the revision and optimization of special tax regimes that will affect all farmers in our country. In particular, from 2018 it is planned to cancel 70% of the VAT privilege for both agricultural producers and cooperative farms and processors of agricultural products. In addition, the acute issue is the restriction of the use of a special tax regime - the Single Land Tax for peasant farms. Therefore, now it is important to work out approaches to acceptable taxation regimes for agricultural producers, which will form the basis of the new developed Tax Code", - continued Ivan Sauer.

Also, according to his information, the AIC Committee plans to conduct calculations and justifications and come up with proposals to the Ministry of Agriculture and the Government on the return of construction and installation works in the rules of investment subsidies. In the opinion the chairman of the Committee of the agrarian and industrial complex, in the framework of saving budget expenditures items for reimbursement of costs incurred in the course of construction and installation works of production premises (milk complexes, vegetable stores, etc.) were excluded from the investment subsidy program. However, these costs are quite significant, and reimbursement of a part of the invested investments for these purposes is an important issue in the development of the entire agro-industrial complex of the country.

The issue of refunding subsidies for the rate of remuneration will be addressed, not only for loans to replenish working capital, but also for loans for the purchase of fixed assets, as well as leasing of agricultural equipment. Approaches to unsecured lending will be developed, including for spring-field and harvesting operations. Now this type of lending has been revised, in particular, lending to farmers under the guarantee of social and business corporations of the region was excluded, which previously allowed without a pledge and a bank guarantee to get a loan and to launch spring sowing campaign for small farmers.

Gradually the work in the logistics sphere is gaining momentum, pilot centers in Astana and Almaty are organized on the basis of agricultural cooperation for the sale of products of domestic producers and suppliers of their products without intermediaries.
The head of NCE Timur Kulibayev instructed the AIC Committee to study the Russian experience in the policy of cheap and affordable credit at 4% per annum, and instructed to study the experience of Russia, Belarus and Uzbekistan in the development of agriculture, as well as to present concrete proposals for efficient processing of agricultural products and further import substitution in this industry