Kazakhstan wooing investors with tax incentives

ASTANA - Keen to attract new industries, the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan has offered concessional financing and tax incentives to businesses willing to set up their manufacturing units in the mineral-rich country.

According to an official document on the new industrial and development policy of Kazakhstan, the Central Asian country is laying much focus on domestic production to match with the course of development of the present world economy.

Businessmen willing to produce in Kazakhstan innovative and export-oriented goods with a high added value will be offered best possible conditions by the state, the document states.

They will be given concessional financing of projects, necessary infrastructure, tax incentive measures, investment tax preferences.

The Kazakhstan government has said that investors at its six free economic zones will be exempted from paying tax on land, corporate income tax, value added tax on import of goods and property tax.

Tax concessions in the economic zones include exemption from VAT and customs incentive measures.

Investors will also be offered loans at subsidized interest rates.

Terming the investment climate in Kazakhstan as favourable, the document states that the country has rich natural and mineral resources in abundance, which is supported by friendly investment laws, attractive measures of support to investments.

On the whole, Kazakhstan has created a necessary legal base for realization of investment activities, it says.

Beginning from this year, the country has started implementing a five-year Programme of Accelerated industrial-Innovative Development (PAID).

President Nursultan Nazarbayev has formulated the new industrial policy, according to which growth of construction industry and production of construction material by the year 2014 should be able to meet more than 80 percent demand of the domestic market.

It also says that the acceleration of the development of chemical, pharmaceutical industry in the next five years should be developed to meet more than 50 percent of requirements of medicines in the domestic market.

Last but not the least, the energy sector, including development of clean energy, should meet the present and future electrical energy requirements of the country.