Kazakhstan's cities will be divided into three categories for development purposes, Tengrinews reports referring to the Minister of Regional Development of Kazakhstan Bolat Zhamishev.
Kazakhstan's cities will be divided into three categories for development purposes, Tengrinews reports referring to the Minister of Regional Development of Kazakhstan Bolat Zhamishev.
Kazakhstan approved the Regional Development Program until 2020, Bolat Zhamishev announced after yesterday's meeting of the Government. The program for development of the country's regions, and improvement of infrastructure and standards of living in remote areas is going to designate and prioritize "growth points".
The program divides Kazakhstan’s main cities into three categories. The first category will include the largest cities: Astana, Almaty, Shymkent and Aktobe. The second category is for oblasts centers Aktau, Karaganda, Kokshetau, Kostanay, Kyzylorda, Petropavlovsk, Taldykorgan, Taraz, Uralsk and Ust-Kamenogorsk, plus Semey and Turkestan. The third category is for 41 promising towns and 27 single-industry towns.
The new regional development program combines six already existing programs. The reason for establishing the integrated program was that all these six programs shared similar goals and priorities, and were focused on improving utilities infrastructure. In the meanwhile all the government measures to support S&MBs were removed from the new regional development program and transferred into the Business Road Map 2020 program that is specifically dedicated to stimulating business in Kazakhstan.
Development of the first category cities - the largest cities - is aimed at transforming the cities into large agglomerations, and then developing these agglomerations as centers of Kazakhstan's long-term growth, furbishing them with highly specialized medical facilities, universities, cultural venues, financial centers, transport and logistics hubs and improving the quality of telecommunications and other services.
According to Minister Zhamishev, the improvements are going to fuel a significant population growth in the four cities.
The program envelopes improvement of living conditions for the growing population: modernization of public utilities systems (gas, heating, electricity, water) and constructing affordable housing. As part of the program, 680km of heating networks will be modernized by 2020: 346km in Almaty, 163km in Astana and the remaining part in Shymkent and Aktobe.
Reporting by Asemgul Kassenova, writing by Assel Satubaldina, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina