Development of urban agglomerations in Kazakhstan: Astana, Almaty, Shymkent and Aktobe (part 2)

23 April, 2018 09:46

In the first part of this article, the main trends of demographic development and indicators of employment in the urban agglomerations of Kazakhstan were analyzed. As it was noted, for all 4 cities there is a constant increase in the number of people, with the largest growth rates in Astana and Almaty. Such a trend actualizes the issue of providing the population with affordable housing and development of the construction sector of city's economy. What are the main indicators of the housing stock of the cities? Read in the second part of the analytical material of Strategy2050.kz.

According to information for 2016, Kazakhstan's housing stock amounted to 342.6 million square meters. For the last 5 years the total area of the housing stock has increased by 39.2 million square meters (2012 - 303.4 million square meters). At the same time, 97.6% of all housing is privately owned and only 2.4% in state ownership.

More than 21 square meters of housing accrue to one resident of Kazakhstan but in comparison with the developed countries of the world, this indicator remains at a low level (more than 70 square meters in the USA, Germany - more than 43 square meters). In the cities of Astana and Almaty, this indicator is slightly higher - 29.6 and 27.6 square meters respectively. Then Aktobe follows, where the availability of housing for residents of the city is 25.4 square meters. In Shymkent there are 23.5 square meters per resident of the city, while in the section of the city districts it is possible to single out Karatau district, where more than 31 square meters of housing accrue to 1 person.

The largest area of housing stock among 4 cities is in Almaty, 44.1 million square meters. In Astana, 2 times less - 20.2 million square meters, in Shymkent - 16.8 million square meters and Aktobe - 9.1 million square meters. At the same time, if we consider such an indicator as the residential area of the housing stock, it can be noted that it is almost 2 times less than the total area of housing in a number of cities (Table 1).

Important indicators in the issue of providing urban residents with housing are data on the number of residential buildings. When comparing 4 cities of the agglomeration centers, the largest number of residential buildings are located in Almaty (more than 157 thousand houses), Shymkent (more than 120 thousand houses). Almost the same number of residential buildings were built and operated in Aktobe and Astana (32.2 thousand houses in each city), which is explained by the relatively small population (Aktobe) and the capital's youth. At the same time, the vast majority of residential buildings in the cities are individual. 96.2% of all houses in Shymkent are individual, Aktobe - 85.4%, Astana - 84.1% and Almaty - 82.0%. The accidents are recognized in Almaty - 1 876, Astana - 257, Aktobe - 25, Shymkent – 2 houses (Table 2).

In 2017, 979.8 billion tenge was allocated for housing construction in Kazakhstan, which was 11.6% more than in 2016. Of the total number of residential buildings, individual houses were put into operation - 26548, multi-apartment buildings - 1203.

In 2017, more than 2.3 million square meters were commissioned in Almaty, in Astana - 1.9 million square meters, in Shymkent - more than 402 thousand square meters and in Aktobe - more than 618 thousand square meters. In the volume of the republican commissioning of housing, Astana (21.1) and Almaty (17.0) occupy the largest share, which is explained by the growth rates of the cities and the availability of demand. These indicators in the expression of the number of apartments put into operation look like this:

Astana - 20 679 apartments (133.0% in relation to 2015);

Almaty - 14,168 apartments (119.4% compared to 2015);

Aktobe - 5 092 apartments (131.4% compared to 2016) - data for 2017;

Shymkent - 2,445 apartments (87.5% in relation to 2015).

At the same time, attention is drawn to the fact that according to the Committee on Statistics, prices per 1 square meter of housing in three of four cities of the urban agglomerations in Kazakhstan are among the highest in Kazakhstan (Figure 1).

Thus, comparing the indicators of the cities, it can be noted that Almaty and Shymkent are leaders in the number of housing but Astana and Almaty are leading in the issue of construction. However, for the cities and Kazakhstan in general, the issue of providing and access to housing is still topical considering the high cost (Astana, Almaty, Shymkent) and the annual population growth. So, according to official data as of October 1, 2017, the number of citizens registered in the local executive bodies for housing is 458 408 people, in Zhilstroysberbank there are more than 988 thousand deposits for housing and about 1.2 million people are turn to receive 10 acres of land. Thus, the approximate number of those who need housing is 2.5 million people, which means that a significant part of the population either needs housing, or would like to improve their living conditions.

At the same time, experts of “Halyk Finance”, the subsidiary company of “Halyk Bank”, note that the availability of housing has improved in recent years, but housing is still inaccessible, which is explained by high rates for housing purchases and insufficiently high incomes. This, according to the experts, actualizes the issue of development of the state mortgage segment.

Amina Urpekova

Collage: Nadezhda Linnikova

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