What is new in Kazakhstan’s national projects?

The list of approved national projects is in the fields of healthcare, education, technological breakthrough, development of entrepreneurship, regional development, sustainable economic growth, the country’s green development, agro-industrial complex and the country’s safety. 

The implementation of the projects is the responsibility of the Presidential Administration.

The Kazakh Ministry of National Economy formulated three of the ten projects – strong regions, businesses, and sustainable economic development. 

Greater support for businesses

The national project on business development focuses on addressing 10 objectives in 4 key areas - increasing entrepreneurial activity, accelerating entrepreneurial growth, forming new sectors, and comprehensively developing competition. It implies the important role of small and medium-sized businesses as drivers of economic growth. 

As part of the projects, people, who would like to do business, will be able to learn the basics of doing business and have access to increased financial resources. Overall, the plan is to bring the share of small and medium-sized businesses in the country’s GDP to 35 percent and create 995,300 jobs.  

In an effort to create new niches, the government will boost its support for tourism. 

“To unlock the tourism potential of the country, 1,000 investment projects (including accommodation facilities, tourist complexes, theme parks and visitor centers) will be implemented.  As a result, the tourism industry's contribution to GDP will increase by 1.5 times by 2025 and private investment in the sector will grow more than threefold. Domestic tourist flow will increase from 4.5 million to 8 million visitors and the number of inbound tourists will increase from 1 million to 3 million visitors,” said the ministry. 

Development of competition is also on the project agenda, with a target to decrease the share of the state in the economy to 14 percent by 2025. 

The total funding for the national project is 8.5 trillion tenge, including more than 1 trillion tenge from the national budget. The ministry said the project will have 7.3 trillion tenge of private investment. 

Why does Kazakhstan need regional development?

Kazakhstan seeks stronger regions, and by this, it envisions ensuring equal access to basic services for the population – improvement of connectivity and transit potential of the country, as well as the mobility of the population.

The national project will be implemented in two areas - equal access to basic services and ensuring transport connectivity.

Basic services refer to comprehensive infrastructure and housing support.

“Comprehensive infrastructure development involves the construction and reconstruction of 16,000 kilometers of water supply and sewerage networks, 46 group conduits and modernization of 785 kilometers of a stormwater drainage system, modernization, and rehabilitation of 7,700 kilometers of public utilities, public loans for the repair of 1,163 apartment buildings,” explained the ministry. 

In terms of improving housing conditions, the target groups will receive support measures, such as subsidizing the rental costs of housing in private housing stock for 185,100 people, and the construction of 102,300 social rented and mortgaged housing, and the construction of 15,000 housing units for employed youth and covering the costs of employers who build homes for their employees in rural areas. 

Sustainable economic development as a long-time priority

This national project set the goals that have long been on the national agenda but now become more urgent, as the country recovers from the consequences of the pandemic.

The focus will be on economic diversification through increased investment in the non-resource sector, as well as through integration into global and regional value chains; on income growth through the creation of high productivity jobs; accelerated development of power generation based on renewables, given the country’s ambition towards low-carbon development.

Besides economic diversification, the country plans to boost the development of its oil and gas sector, mining sector and modernization of its energy complex. 

Digitization will be a key target across all areas with the plan to bring the share of manufacturing enterprises using digital technologies to 23 percent. 

The total funding for the national project amounts to 15.9 trillion tenge, including 402 billion tenge from the national budget and 15.5 trillion tenge of private investment.

What is new in national projects?

The idea of national projects was first voiced by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in his address to the nation in September last year. The projects were meant to replace inefficient state programs and be more understandable for the public.

“Life outside your office windows is developing along a complex trajectory. (…) We have to walk the earth, roughly speaking," said Tokayev in July. 

Project management will be the new feature of national projects, said Director of the Project Management Department at the Kazakh Ministry of National Economy Ilona Schwarzkopf.

"The project management in the implementation of the national projects requires the involvement of all stakeholders. Government agencies are now forming joint cross-functional project teams with the involvement of state bodies, experts, and the public. This is a new organizational culture and a project-network public administration model, and it is based on modern technology," said Ilona Schwarzkopf.

Personal responsibility for the achievement of targets in each project and the detailed allocation of budget is also among the novelties. 

Each national project has a supervisor at the level of Deputy Prime Minister and heads of national projects at the level of ministers. Indicators of the national projects are currently being disaggregated by government agencies into sectors and regions. The pool of projects required to achieve each decomposed indicator in the industry, region, district, and rural district will then be determined.

“All project activities will be carried out in the information system, which allows not only to monitor the implementation of each task, but also allows for operational monitoring of expenditures on each project. Also, the rules of project management implementation provide for the formation of public groups to monitor the progress. So we invite citizens to take an active part in the implementation of the national projects,” she said.