Defense spending to fall in Kazakhstan in 2020
Kazakhstan is increasing its defense capacities as the state budget expenditures for defense increased in monetary terms by a record 36% within the year, Finprom.kz reports.
The figure is due to fall to 681.8 billion tenge in 2020 under the law on the republican budget, the statement reads.
In 2019, state budget expenditures aimed at defense increased by a whopping 36.3% and amounted to 738.7 billion tenge, thus making up 5.5% of the total budget expenditures in 2019. By contrast, 2018 saw the state budget expenditures on defense stood at 542.1 billion tenge, with a yearly increase of 19.8%.
2020 is due to see a reduction in defense spending. So under the law “On the republican budget for 2020–2022,” defense spending will amount to 681.8 billion tenge in 2020, 761.6 billion tenge in 2021 and 789.7 billion tenge in 2022.
At the same time, investments in the sector are also growing. In January – December 2019, capital investments in public administration, defense and compulsory social security increased by 8.6% compared to last year and reached 58.9 billion tenge. In the corresponding period last year, the amount of investments amounted to 54.3 billion tenge, a year-on-year increase of 8.4%.
The list of the regions with the largest amount of investment in public administration, defense and compulsory social security topped by Turkestan region: 22.9 billion tenge or 38.9% of the total amount of investment in this area. It was followed by Atyrau region (6.6 billion tenge) and Nur-Sultan (6.3 billion tenge).
Fourth and fifth were Karaganda and Almaty regions, where the amount of investments amounted to 5.7 billion and 4.9 billion tenge, respectively. These five regions represent 79% of the total investments in public administration, defense and compulsory social security in Kazakhstan.
