BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 4
Trend:
More than 5,000 projects were subsidized in Kazakhstan within the ‘Business Roadmap (BRM) 2025’ and ‘Economy of Simple Things’ programs, the National Economy Ministry said, Trend reports referring to Kazinform.
In the first quarter, within the mentioned programs, 5,884 projects were subsidized for a total amount of loans of 232 billion tenge ($540 million). Guarantees were provided for 6,892 projects worth 87 billion tenge ($200 million) in loans, the ministry’s head Aset Irgaliyev stated at a meeting of the Government.
According to Irgaliyev, within the Agrarian Credit Corporation, 134 projects were supported for the number of loans of 5.9 billion tenge ($14 million).
He reminded that on April 1, the country’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev instructed to extend the term of subsidizing loans for the COVID-19 pandemic-affected sectors of the economy. Within the framework of this work, 93 general classifiers of types of economic activities (NACE) have been identified.
“The subsidization period will be 3 months from April 1 to July 1, 2021. It’s planned to cover more than 6,700 projects worth 425.5 billion tenge ($990 million) in loans,” the minister said.
Besides, according to him, last year, within the ‘BRM-2025’ program, a microcredit business program was launched. Within the framework of this direction, loans are provided up to 5 million tenge ($12,000) for working capital and up to 20 million tenge ($46,000) for investment purposes.
“At the same time, most of the loans up to 5 million tenge are issued on an unsecured basis at a rate of 6 percent for the end borrower. Within the ‘Enbek’ program, budget micro credits are provided in cities and villages at 6 percent per annum through the Fund of Financial Support of Agriculture,” Irgaliyev further said. “In the second half of the year, micro crediting will also be launched under the Employment Roadmap program. These micro credits will be issued to graduates of the ‘Bastau-Business’ training program through the established micro-financial organizations of ‘Atameken’ National Chamber of Entrepreneurs.”
“By the end of the year, within the framework of these programs, it’s planned to cover more than 24,000 business entities with micro crediting,” added the minister.
In the third quarter of 2020, the share of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in the economy reached 30.5 percent.
(1 USD = 430.14 KZT on May 4)