On 1st of June 2017, the department for the development of small and medium business of the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs RK "Atameken" held a conference call with the regions on the theme: "Practical implementation of legislation on the circulation of civil and service weapons in the framework of observance of the rights of business entities engaged in trade".

The need for such a meeting was determined by the situation in which 70% of the stores turned out after the amendments to legislation passed in January this year. The essence of the amendments is to isolate customers of these stores from places of mass congestion and other public places.

Representatives of regional departments of construction and architecture, regional prosecutor's offices, employees of bodies for control over the turnover of civil and service weapons of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan participated in the meeting in addition to the business entities themselves. In Astana - the authorized body-licensor (the department for control over the circulation of civil and service weapons of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan), is the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Housing and Utilities Community of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Opening the meeting, Deputy Director of the Department of Small and Medium Business Development of NCE RK Irina Tyugina explained that the need to discuss this issue is caused by the serious risks that trade in civil and service weapons is subject to. Weapon stores should receive clear and competent answers from authorized state bodies in the field of construction and architecture regarding their current location and the further fate of their business.

Vice-president of the Kazakhstani Weapons Association "Koramsak" Sergey Katnov described the situation as a whole, explaining that no more than 30% of the industry's enterprises meet new requirements, while the rest have only a year to solve the problems of their continued existence.

Katnov cited a number of examples, one of which is Saiga store in Pavlodar. This store adjoins the residential house, but it is an independent building, has its own territory and even a separate mailing address. Nevertheless, the construction and architecture authorities of Pavlodar region referred it simultaneously to a residential building, a hotel, a healthcare facility and a shopping center. But such an arrangement can not be applied in principle. There are problems of this kind in other weapons shops.

Chief expert of the Department of Architecture, Urban Planning and Urban Cadastre of the Committee for Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the Ministry of Investment and Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan Adilbek Saylyhan explained that the conclusion on this store by the construction and architecture bodies of Pavlodar region was apparently given without proper analysis.

The main expert of the Department of Technical Regulation and Regulation of the CUPUC and Housing and Communal Services of MID RK Sabina Akhilova expressed the opinion that the not quite clear language of the law among the construction and architecture officers on the ground causes difficulties in their understanding and the need to adopt a number of by-laws that would clarify and specify provisions of the law.

Irina Tyugina noted that the adoption of by-laws is a lengthy process, and the fate of arms stores is being decided today.

"While we wait for subordinate acts, the sub-sector will simply cease to exist. At the same time, the position of the authorized state agency in the sphere of trade in the person of the department for regulating trading activity of the Ministry of Energy of the RK is not clear, which has withdrawn from solving this problem. This is noticeable even by their demonstrative ignoring of this meeting. At the same time, the representatives of the department said that the problems of arms stores are not the competence of the department for regulating trading activity !? ", - noted Irina Tyugina.

She also noted the absence at the meeting of the Department of Business Development of the Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

"One can not help asking why some government officials, a priori who are called upon to develop business in general and trade in particular, do not show interest in discussing and solving problems directly with representatives of the business community?" - Irina continued.

The head of the department for control over the circulation of civil and service weapons of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nurtai Sartayev, explained that when discussing changes to the law by the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 6 editions of the issue calling questions were considered  item 2 and 4 of Art. 22 of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On State Control over the Traffic of Certain Weapons". In his opinion, the construction and architecture authorities should literally follow the letter of the law, not allowing subjective assessments in relation to a particular weapons store.

Sergey Katnov explained that Kazakhstani arms makers achieved a high level of interaction with the disrupted body - the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which speaks about normal, partnership relations between the state body and business. But the interaction with the bodies of construction and architecture is not always constructive.

It should be noted that this meeting was aimed not only to identify the problems, but also to establish a direct dialogue between the weapons makers and the construction and architecture authorities for a specific purpose - to obtain direct, unambiguous and competent answers to their questions. In a number of regions (Almaty, Kyzylorda and Astana), such a dialogue within the conference call took place and led either to a solution or to the definition of clear ways to resolve existing issues.

In general, all participants of the meeting recognized the event as important, useful and timely.