On 28^th of September 2017 was held a meeting of the Committee for the Development of Small and Medium Business under the chairmanship of Executive Director of the Association of the Forum of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan, Palatasheva Munavara Tursunovna. All regional chambers of entrepreneurs were connected to the videoconference.

During the meeting, two aspects relevant to the business community were considered: measures to optimize the state control of SMEs and the implementation of information and methodological support for SMEs.

The Chairperson noted the relevance of the topics covered for business and interested departments. M.Paltasheva briefly focused on the main problems in the area of ​​improving control and verification activities of entrepreneurs and the efforts made by government agencies, together with NCE RK "Atameken". The basis for active work in this direction was the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan from 27^th of February 2014 #757 "On Cardinal Measures to Improve the Conditions for Entrepreneurial Activity in the Republic of Kazakhstan". The representative of the Department of Public Monitoring and Work with Administrative Barriers, Asel Amirgalina, highlighted the positive progress in improving the control mechanisms of the competent state bodies.

"At present, enterprises are categorized according to the degree of risk into three types: high-risk, medium-sized and subjects with a low level of risk. NCE constantly works to promote the improvement of business conditions. Compared to previous years, all types of checks have been reduced by 32%. At the same time, the positive sides are leveled by the desire of audit organizations to manipulate the norms of laws to increase pressure on business.In particular, about 54% of all inspections are conducted off-schedule. The most active are consumer protection agencies, tax authorities, labor inspectorate, construction authorities, housing and communal services and akimats. In 2016, the tax authorities initiated 24 thousand inspections, most of which were unplanned. Cases were noted when about 50 inspections were conducted in respect of 1 subject", - the speaker said.

The representative of the Department of Entrepreneurship Development of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan Tleules Mukhsinova briefly announced the statistical data on improving state control and supervision. According to her words, due to duplication and lack of efficiency, 24 control areas are excluded from 114 spheres of control and 3 areas of supervision, 165 functions of state bodies out of 544 are subject to exclusion due to duplication of powers of state institutions, 6 areas out of 25 will be transferred to the general order of organization and holding checks, about 30 articles of the Code of Administrative Offenses are subject to exclusion.

"The Ministry, in conjunction with government agencies, is working to reduce the requirements in the health checkups in the field of sanitary and epidemiological surveillance to 3 thousand out of 11 thousand. In a similar way, changes will be made to more than 80 checklists containing reference requirements. In general, the positive trend from the adopted systemic measures is evident. So, if in 2010, in total 349 thousand inspections were registered, then in 2011 there are 282 thousand, and in 2016 this figure was reduced to 98.6 thousand", - Mukhsinova informed.

Berik Sharip, Deputy Chairman of the Public Health Protection Committee of the Ministry of Healthcare of the Republic of Kazakhstan, highlighted major measures implemented by the Ministry in the direction of optimizing inspections of small and medium-sized businesses, including within the framework of the established ad hoc working group.

"Six sanitary regulations have been revised and sanitary and epidemiological requirements have been optimized. 29 obsolete and duplicate sanitary rules were abolished. New criteria for risk assessment with the introduction of a risk-based oversight model have been developed and approved. 41 checklists were developed, instead of one with a number of reference rules. Sanitary requirements in checklists are reduced. Together with NCE, the SNiPs for health and education facilities have been revised and improved", - he said.

"The Republican Association of Sanitary and Epidemiological Auditors of Kazakhstan" operates, which includes about 25 specialized consulting companies. Business entities can apply for their services and eliminate identified deficiencies in the SanPin part", Sharip added.

At the end of the first question, Dinmukhamed Absattarov, Managing Director and Director of the Department of SME Development, gave some analytical data on the real contribution of SMEs to the economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In this context, he pointed to the international experience in the development of small and medium-sized businesses and their share in the economy in comparison with Kazakhstan.

"We periodically talk about the stable improvement of business conditions in our country, incl. by reducing the number of verification and control measures, abolishing duplicate and ineffective functions of state bodies in supervision of entrepreneurial activity. This is generally good and shows some positive dynamics. But we are more concerned with quantitative indicators in terms of improving one aspect or another. I would like to draw attention to the qualitative effect of all this on the growth of the economy in order to reveal direct correlation with the taken measures ", - stressed Dinmukhamed Absattarov.

In particular, SMEs provide 26.8% of Kazakhstan's GDP, but if we look at developed countries, to which we aspire, the share of small and medium-sized businesses in the growth of the economy is at least 60%. The role of SMEs in solving a socially important task, such as employment, in developed countries reaches 70-75%, for example, in Japan.

In Kazakhstan, this indicator is at the level of 37.5% of the total number of able-bodied population. At the same time, despite the active support of SMEs, from the beginning of 2016 to August 2017, the number of all categories of small and medium-sized businesses decreased by 132,591 units. This is a real alarm. The number of peasant farms in the last few years is declining and is currently at the level of 2005. This occurs against the backdrop of the annual allocation of colossal amounts of budget funds for the development of the agro-industrial complex.

"These figures show us the real situation in the SME sector. In this regard, it is advisable to consider the impact of the measures taken through the prism of the final economic effect and assess the work of the state through indicators of improving the above indicators", - Absattarov said.

The Director of the SME Development Department pointed to the evaluations of the Global Business Monitoring experts, according to which, improving the conditions for doing business in Kazakhstan by 10% could give an economic effect of 52 billion USD. In the context of improving the state control and supervisory functions, Dinmukhamed Absattarov referred to the experience of Georgia, whose authorities largely reformatted the regulatory competencies of a number of state bodies. As a result, the business climate in the country has radically changed for the better. At the same time, we do not urge to fully adopt the experience of other countries, but we should take into account such achievements and move to a new level of planning and implementing strategic tasks. In the second part of the meeting, issues of implementation of information and methodical support of SMEs in the following areas were considered: "Business-Nasihat", "Bastau Business", "Center for Agrocompetencies", "Monitoring and Expertise Center" and Business Support Services.

Nurseit Kurmanov, expert of the Public Relations Department of NCE, briefed about the Business Nasihat project, which is one of the directions of the Single Program "Business Roadmap 2020" implemented in the framework of non-financial measures to support entrepreneurship. The aim of the project is to explain to the general public the measures of state support for the effective implementation of the Program, as well as to popularize the ideas of entrepreneurship.

"Within the framework of the project, a cycle of programs in the genre of" Special Reportage "is being developed and launched on regional and national TV channels. Also, 2 programs have been prepared on the channels "Khabar 24" and "Astana", dedicated to the development of entrepreneurship ", - said Nurseit Kurmanov.

Baurzhan Orazgaliev, Director of the Department of Business Communication Development in the State Language of NCE RK, briefly focused on the main advantages of the Bastau Business project, which is the basis of the second direction of the Program for the Development of Productive Employment and Mass Entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this national program is to teach mainly the business of the self-employed and unemployed population, support of entrepreneurial initiatives, and the guarantee of microcredits from the state. It is expected that only in 2017 will be covered 80 out of 160 rural areas. In total, up to 2021, 3 thousand new projects are planned with the help of this program. The representative of the Competence Center Bolat Seisenov explained the measures of comprehensive support of agro-industrial complex subjects through training mechanisms, exit point consultations. In practical terms, the results of the Center's work for 8 months of the current year.

Stopping on the quantitative indicators, B. Seisenov informed that the Center conducted 852 seminars, 3124 remote consultations, 130 training programs were developed. Aimgul Abileva, Deputy Director of LLP the Center for Monitoring and Market Expertise, presented information on the concept of the digital platform - the Government for Business. This project will be presented to the general public in December 2017 and timed to the Day of Industrialization. According to Abileva, "The government's digital platform for business will increase the coverage of entrepreneurs by service through the" one-stop-shop "principle to 1,130,000 entrepreneurs.

The program is designed to increase sales, reduce business costs, finance and reduce administrative barriers. The digital platform will work through cloud applications, operate with large data and introduce financial technologies (fintech). As a result, the Chairperson noted the positive aspects and advantages of each of the programs presented and the scope of the work of NCE with government agencies to support the entrepreneurial initiative in the Republic. At the end of the meeting, the Association of Security Organizations of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Kazakhstan Association of Pre-School Organizations published their reports on the results of nine months of this year.

Separate questions concerning their work, a number of problem aspects in the sphere of preschool institutions are considered.

In general, the results of the hearing gave a positive assessment of the activities of these associations and identified specific tasks for the next period.