Competitiveness of domestic producers forum took place today in Astana.During the event,Chairman of the Management Board of Sovereign Wealth Fund Samruk-Kazyna JSC Akhmetzhan Yesimov and Chairman of the Presidium of the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of KazakhstanAtameken Timur Kulibayev signed cooperationagreement.

According to the document, a long-term import substitution program will be developed tosignificantly reduce the share of net imports. Thisapproach will stimulate the creation of hundreds of new manufacturing enterprises to offer goods previously not produced in the country.

"The essence of the Program is that we jointly draftthe list of goods that are purchased by the Fund group of companies and are exclusively imports. We together with Atameken conduct a contestamong potential investors for the organization of production in Kazakhstan. The Fund, for its part, confirms its willingness to conclude long-term contracts with the winners of the contest who will createthe necessary production,"Akhmetzhan Yesimov, Chairman of the Management Board of Samruk-Kazyna, told during his welcome speech.

The Head of Samruk-Kazyna also stressed that these initiatives stimulate the investment activity of domestic entrepreneurs, create new production and new jobs as well as provide additional tax revenues to the budget.

"Due to the withdrawal from the intra-holding cooperation the Fund will transfer procurement worth about KZT 700 billion to the competitive environment for business entities in the next two years. This will allow a large number of entrepreneurs to participate in the Fund's procurement, "A.Yessimov said.

In addition, the Fund will impose a moratorium on concluding new and extending existing long-term contracts with foreign suppliers or their intermediaries in the commodity classification of domestic producers.

"This is not anad hocmeasure.We will continue to carry out systematic work to develop cooperation with entrepreneurs and improve the procurement system. This is a mutually beneficial cooperation. On the one hand, the business gets transparent access to the procurementof the Fund group of companies, which generally contributes to the development of entrepreneurship in the country. On the other, due to the expansion of competition Samruk-Kazyna is able to effectively use the funds,"MrYessimov commented.

As part of the development of the electronic procurement system, it is planned to introduce electronic contracting on the new procurement portal by the end of this year. This will make it possible to conclude contracts in a matter of days. Furthermore, this measure will eliminate the need for postal shipments, entrepreneurs will not go around the offices and collect signatures.

In order to protect the interests of domestic business, the Fund decided to transfer to Atameken NCE the authority to conduct on-site audits of potential suppliers. This will make the procedure for conducting an audit transparent, reduce corruption, cut costs of business and protect their legitimate interests.

In addition, the financing of the Development of social entrepreneurship AREKET project will be doubled from 70 to KZT 140 million from 2019. The project is aimed at supporting regional business initiatives in the field of social entrepreneurship.