Building a new economic structure is the priority for the coming period - Askar Mamin
The government videoconference, chaired by the Prime Minister Askar Mamin considered the outcomes of the country's socio-economic development and republican budget performance for January-April, 2020, primeminister.kz reports.
The Minister of National Economy Ruslan Dalenov, the Chairman of the National Bank Erbolat Dossayev, the First Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance Alikhan Smailov, the Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development Beibut Atamkulov, the Minister of Trade and Integration Bakhyt Sultanov, the Minister of Energy Nurlan Nogayev reported on the state of the economy, the banking sector, the republican budget performance as well as industry development.
In January-April this year, GDP fell by 0.2% compared to the corresponding period of 2019. The negative dynamics were displayed by the trade and transport sector, having decreased by 8.9% and 11%, respectively. At the same time, the processing industry grew by 7%, including machine-building by 25.4%, light industry by 13.9%, pharmaceuticals by 24.2%, as well as the mining industry by 6%, construction by 5.5%, communication services by 9.6%, agriculture by 2.2%. Investments into the fixed capital increased by 0.9%. Gold and foreign exchange reserves amounted to $30.5 billion, assets of the National Fund accounted for $58.5 billion.
The Head of the Government stressed that the service sector should begin to recover due to lifting the state of emergency and easing the quarantine measures. This will be provided by all measures of the state support via tax incentives, concessional lending, supporting domestic production through guaranteed sales of domestic goods.
The Government jointly with Atameken NCE and industry associations discussed measures to stimulate business activities, to ensure employment and maintain incomes of the population. Based on the developed measures, on behalf of the Head of the State, a Comprehensive Plan has been drafted to restore the economic growth by the end of this year, which will be considered at the next Government meeting.
The Prime Minister instructed to take concrete measures to restore the service sector.
“In general, the priority for the coming period is building a new economic structure based on increasing its self-sufficiency, competitiveness of non-resource sector, high-quality investments and integration into the regional and global chains of value added”, Askar Mamin summarized.