Nazarbayev instructs to stop duplicating production facilities

Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev has instructed the Ministry of Economy to stop duplicating production facilities in the country's regions, Tengrinews reported from the expanded government meeting in the President’s residence late last week. “Tell me, why are there similar production facilities in one region? Everyone builds cement plants, everyone manufactures railroad wagons. Have anyone even calculated the sales or the local consumption?” the President asked Kazakhstan Minister of Economy and Budget Planning Yerbolat Dossayev. The Minister replied that the general map of development of the territories was almost ready. It is called to ensure that there is no duplication of production facilities in the regions. According to him, the work on the map will be completed in Q4 2013. “This is indeed one of the cornerstone problems that we have. I can even give an example of two regions located next to each other in two neighboring oblasts set up similar production facilities. That’s why in the process of preparation of the second stage of the State Program of Accelerated Industrial-Innovative Development, I would like us to better coordinate the development and make sure that our regions get better integrated with each other, which we currently lack,” Dossayev said. “This is the Ministry’s objective. There are 16 regions and they have to trade with each other. All the oblasts have to be involved. Our population is small and the local market is saturated,” the President said. Nazarbayev set two main objectives to the Ministry: to ensure economic growth and improve employment. “We have created a huge number of programs and don’t have enough money for them all. This is not the way things should be done. The government should make the calculations and tell us the direction where we will have the highest growth and employment. And we will focus on that, the rest can wait,” Nazarbayev added. “We are completing a check of all the state-run and narrowly-focused industrial programs. We will make clear suggestions on which programs to combined and will cut the funding that used to be allocated for them. We will divert the funds to development of infrastructure,” Dossayev said. By Altynai Zhumzhumina