ASTANA, Kazakhstan, December 2. The volume of loans allocated to businesses in Kazakhstan amounted to 10.4 trillion tenge (about $22.5 billion) from January through September 2023, which is 14.9 percent more than for the same period in 2022, said Deputy Chairman of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market Olzhas Kizatov, Trend reports.
As he noted, this was influenced by the growth of loans to small and medium-sized businesses.
According to him, in order to support lending to business entities, the agency has been implementing prudential incentive measures since 2020.
Growth in lending to the economy was registered in all regions of the country. Most of the loans were issued in large cities: Almaty (42.2 percent), Astana (13.6 percent), and Shymkent (5.7 percent).
In terms of industries, a significant share of lending to the economy falls on industry (11.5 percent) and trade (10.2%).
At the same time, in comparison with the beginning of the year, lending growth is observed in the transport and trade sectors by 24 percent and 16 percent, respectively.
Furthermore, until June 2023, the number of operating SMEs in Kazakhstan increased by 23.4 percent and amounted to about 2 million enterprises. Total employment in this sector increased by more than 18 percent to 4.1 million people. Thus, about 40 percent of all people employed in the economy work in SMEs.
As a result, the share of SMEs in the economy increased from 33.3 percent to 36.5 percent. The volume of production by SMEs increased by 28 percent and amounted to over 59 trillion tenge (about $123 billion).