Kazakh Government approves 2030 Trade Policy Concept

According to the Government, trade remains one of key areas of the economy, with more than 1.5 million people employed in it last year, which accounted for 16.6% of all people employed countrywide. In the past 10 years, the sector created 228,000 jobs and registered over 806,000 business entities, which accounts for one third of the country’s enterprises.

The document aims at building sustainable and transparent ties between production, storage and sale of goods both in the domestic and foreign markets. The system is called to ensure comfortable conditions for all the participants: for buyers – access to home-produced and imported goods at a fare price, for producers – predictable sale channels, and for business – legal and convenient work conditions.

“The Concept is aimed at forming the ecosystem of trade based on digital technologies, high efficiency of trade processes, fair competition principles, consumers’ rights protection, domestic production support, integration into the global supply chains and development of Kazakhstan as a key trade and logistics hub in Central Asia,” the document reads.

Trade is considered as an independent sector of the economy with its own priorities, challenges and development strategy. The main goal is to protect economic interests of the country and citizens.

Three key areas of development include: creation of the ecosystem of modern trade, domestic production support and exports growth, as well as consumers’ rights protection.

The Concept includes certain target indicators:

· Growth of the physical volume index of trade - from 107% in 2025 to 110.2% by 2030;

· Increase in labor productivity - from 121.9% to 171%;

· Growth of investments in fixed capital - from 1.22 trillion tenge to 2.7 trillion tenge;

· Reduction of the share of the shadow economy in trade - from 3.02% to 2.42%;

· Increase in the share of exchange trading - up to 27% (from the current 10%);

· Growth of the share of e-commerce - from 15% to 20%;

· Increase in the share of modern trade formats - from 44% to 72%;

· Growth of non-resource exports - from 41 billion to 52 billion US dollars,

· Improvement in the efficiency of regulation in consumer protection - from 74.7% to 80.7%;

· Growth of Kazakhstan’s measurement standards capabilities - from 3.4% to 14.5%;

Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that since 2020, the volume of e-commerce in Kazakhstan increased sevenfold, but still remains below the global average.