Government should teach Kazakhstan’s citizens to pay off loans: President Nazarbayev

The Government should teach Kazakhstan’s citizens to pay off loans, Tengrinews.kz reports, citing the country’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev as saying.

“Kazakhstan’s people haven’t learned to pay off their loans … and the country’s leadership has been trying to be too understanding”, President Nazarbayev said when speaking at the sitting of the Foreign Investors' Council (FIC).

According to him, the share of NPLs is the most alarming in agriculture. “Every year the sowing campaign entails a big wave of NPLs”, Nazarbayev said.

He cited four companies operating in the agriculture industry with a combined debt of $4.3 billion. “These four companies are responsible for 2 million tons of grain, with the grain production figure being insignificant for Kazakhstan (…) half of such [irresponsible] companies should be let go bankrupt (…) at some point they will burst anyway (…) we’d better let companies go bankrupt to make room for more prudent managers”.

President is confident that excessive support to businesses on the part of the Government hampers businesses from developing. “I am saying that so that the government would start taking measures”, he closed.