Astana, Kazakhstan, March 13
By Daniyar Mukhtarov - Trend:
Expenditure on geological exploration in Kazakhstan has increased from five billion tenge to 18 billion tenge ($1=184.07 tenge) in the last four years, the Committee of Geology and Subsoil Use of Kazakhstan's Ministry of Industry and New Technologies told Trend.
"Under the program for the development of the mineral and raw material complex in Kazakhstan for 2010-2014, the financing of geological exploration has increased from five billion tenge to 18 billion tenge," the committee said.
Financial expenditure worth 50 billion tenge on the implementation of this programme is expected to be provided by the state budget, according to the committee. The expenditures amounted to five billion tenge in 2010, 6.5 billion tenge - 2011, 13 billion tenge - 2012, 8.9 billion tenge in 2013 and 18 billion tenge in 2014.
After the collapse of the USSR, the funding of geological exploration in Kazakhstan was conducted on a budgetary basis, resulting in a sharp decline in the volume of geological exploration work and a brain drain.
Later in 1995-2002, search and exploration work was carried out mainly with the funds of investors and the budget only funded regional geological studies.
As a result, an imbalance emerged between the exhausted and developed reserves in Kazakhstan. This error has been taken into account in the programme for the development of the resource base of mineral and raw material complex of the country for the period of 2003-2010. This was aimed at not only improving the existing system of geological research, but also to create a new, a more effective one.
The new programme for the development of the mineral and raw material complex in Kazakhstan for 2010-2014 has been developed taking into account the country's industrialisation and therefore envisages more ambitious goals.
Translated by L.Z.
Edited by S.M.