ASTANA, Kazakhstan, April 2. Kazakhstan will create industrial zones in several single-industry towns, Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov said at a government meeting, Trend reports.
"The Ministry of Industry, together with the regional executive authorities of Aktobe, Atyrau, and Karaganda regions, needs to create industrial zones following the example of the city of Saran in the single-industry towns of Khromtau, Satbayev, Balkhash, and Kulsary by the end of this year. In the future, this experience should be extended to other single-industry towns," he said.
According to him, the development of small and medium-sized businesses in single-industry towns will reduce the dependence of employment on city-forming enterprises.
Bektenov noted that the transfer of auxiliary productions to business will stimulate the diversification of the economy of single-industry towns and contribute to the creation of new jobs.
Today, a meeting of the government of Kazakhstan was held, where issues of the development of single-industry towns were discussed.
Kazakhstan currently has 20 single-industry towns, home to over 1.3 million residents. Today, there are 23 city-forming enterprises in oil and gas, coal, iron ore, etc. in single-industry towns. At the end of last year, the volume of industrial production in single-industry towns amounted to 18.5 trillion tenge (about $41 billion). The number of operating SMEs in single-industry towns increased over the year from 92,300 to 100,200.