Kazakhstan to spend 1 percent of GDP on green economy

Kazakhstan will annually spend at least 1 percent of GDP for transition to the green economy, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Kazakhstan Environmental Protection Minister Nurlan Kapparov as saying at the conference called Creation of green economy in Kazakhstan. “It is yet hard to say how much it will cost to switch to the green economy. But I can say how other countries have done it. China, for example, undertook to invest 1.5 percent of GDP into the green economy. South Korea pledged to invest 2 percent of its GDP. Our strategy will show how aggressive we will go. There are many scenarios and we will compare them, but I think we will invest at least 1 percent,” Kapparov said. According to him, Kazakhstan is ready to transit to the green economy financially, mentally and, most important, program-wise. “We will start this transition after adoption of a special strategy, so that people understand that it will not happen right away. This will be a long program aimed for 20 or 30 years,” the Minister said. By Baubek Konyrov