09 июля 2014 19:51

Almaty and Astana best cities of former USSR according to Forbes

Almaty. Photo courtesy of almaty.kz

Russian Forbes has named Almaty and Astana among the best cities of the former USSR, Tengrinews reports citing Novosti-Kazakhstan.

Almaty was rated 4th and Astana took the 5th place.

“This year, Forbes for the first time presents a rating of former USSR cities attractive for Russian businessmen. We were not only considering the paying capacity of the citizens and their tax burdens, but also the visa regimes, their stand on the Russian language and the requirements posed to non-residents to registed a company,” Forbes wrote.

Minsk (Belarus) is in the first place in the rating, followed by Tallinn (Estonia) and Vilnius (Lithuania). Moscow was not considered in the rating.

“Almaty and Astana’s high positions (in the rating) were not a surprise. Rich Kazakhstan pursues modern economic strategies, despite a number of problems on institutional level,” Forbes added.

Other Central Asian cities Dushanbe (Tajikistan), Tashkent (Uzbekistan) and Ashgabat (Turkmenistan) close the Forbes rating. The magazine noted that despite the “low rent prices, oil, gas and other natural resources”, levels of poverty, underdeveloped banking systems and other drawbacks negatively affect the presence of Russian businessmen in the region.

Writing by Gyuzel Kamalova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina

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