Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan held a meeting with members of the Regional Council of the Chamber of Entrepreneurs. Today, during a working visit to Mangistau region, Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Bakytzhan Sagintayev met with members of the Regional Council of the Chamber of Entrepreneurs, at which were discussed systemic issues and the most promising areas of small and medium business. The meeting was attended by Deputy Chairman of the Board of NCE RK "Atameken" Nurzhan Altaev and representatives of the business community of the region. In the context of mutual understanding and focus on productive cooperation, representatives of the business community discussed a number of issues on the development of public-private partnership, the development of a state program to support the tourism industry.

The topic of allocation of funds for microcrediting for entrepreneurs in rural areas and small towns of the region was touched upon. It should be noted that more than 60% of the population of Mangistau region live in rural areas, in mono- and small towns of the region. In turn, second-tier banks do not finance small and medium-sized businesses in the regions. The volume of annual demand for micro-crediting is 2 billion tenge. In 2017, 474 million tenge was allocated, 100% of it was used. In 2018 - the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan requested 490 million tenge, which is insufficient to meet the 2018 applications and the rolling projects of 2017. At the meeting, the topic of the limitation of flights by the Civil Aviation Committee of MID RK was discussed. Aktau Airport is the hub airport of Western Kazakhstan and takes the third place in terms of passenger traffic after the airports of Almaty and Astana.

The trustee manager LLP ATM Group invested more than 80 million USD to develop the infrastructure of the airport and the passenger terminal. Currently, Aktau Airport has the ability to serve all types of aircraft without any restrictions on take-off weight. At the same time, the congestion of the airport from the available opportunity is 37%. However, with the available options, flights to and from Kazakhstan for passengers are limited to 3 hubs: Moscow, Baku and Istanbul. However, restrictions on flights to Aktau airport do not allow the opening of new flights and the development of routes, the participants of the meeting pointed out the problem. The basis of the agriculture of the Mangistau region is livestock, camel breeding is the focus. One third of the republican camel population is bred In the region. At the moment, 5 production units for processing camel milk and bottling shubat "Aruana" work on the territory of the region.

However, according to the legislation of Turkmenistan, the export of Turkmen camels is prohibited. Participants touched upon this problem during the meeting. They talked about the development of the state program to support the tourism industry, taking into account the financing, the provision of necessary benefits, which will allow implementing projects in the tourism industry. Tourism occupies the fourth place in world exports of goods and services (7.4%), second only to exports of cars, chemicals and fuel. In terms of profitability, this industry ranks third in the world after the oil industry and automotive industry. Possessing uniqueness, the tourism product of Kazakhstan is not competitive enough and loses to foreign analogues in terms of accessibility, service level and the price of tourist services.

Thus, the main problems of development of the tourist industry in the region are: insufficient infrastructure development; lack of qualified personnel in the field of tourism; the lack of a state program to support the tourism industry, taking into account the financing, the provision of necessary benefits, which will allow implementing projects in the tourism industry; little interest on the part of investors. Speaking about the development of PPP, the participants noted that this is a priority for this region. However, a number of issues arise that require attention and solutions from the state. When financing PPP projects, second-tier banks do not actually consider PPP projects as investment-attractive and assess them as high-risk. That is, based on the main normative documents, banks can’t accept the provision of PPP contracts, as in case of violation of the established prudential standards of STB, they will incur losses. Bakytzhan Sagintayev noted that the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan on a systematic basis is working to improve the business climate in the country and create favorable conditions for the development of domestic business. Active measures are taken to deregulate the business, today the number of permits for business has been reduced by more than three times. At the same time, work is continuing to reduce various types of reporting and information, as well as unreasonable tax inspections. In addition, a lot of work was done to ensure business access to government purchases and purchases of a quasi-public sector, and work was begun to establish target indicators to increase local content for each system-forming enterprise in the country. With regard to the provision of financial support measures, the Government is currently implementing the Program for the Development of Productive Employment and Mass Entrepreneurship, under which micro credits are provided up to 18 million KZT at an attractive rate.