Kazakhstan to provide US$5.8 billion of soft loans to small and medium-sized businesses in 2021

The development of small and medium-sized businesses was discussed at a government meeting. Kazakh Prime Minister Askar Mamin spoke about the work carried out to create the most favorable environment for the SME sector. To this end, a comprehensive recovery plan to restore economic growth for this year was updated to include over 60 additional support measures for SME entities. They provide for reducing the burden on businesses in terms of tax breaks, facilitating tax administration and increasing access to concessional financing.

“This year, more than 2.5 trillion tenge (US$5.8 billion) of soft loans will be made available to SMEs as part of expanding their access to concessional financing covering about 47,000 projects. Work has been done to reduce the time required to consider business applications for business support programs from 21 to five working days. The digital transformation of public services on subsidizing and guaranteeing loans increased to 97 percent this year. From April 1 to July 1, 2021, a deferral in the payment of all taxes from the wage bill was introduced for SMEs. This allowed the business to save about 200 billion tenge (US$466.2 million),” said Kazakh Prime Minister Askar Mamin.

Translation by Assem Zhanmukhanova

Editing by Galiya Khassenkhanova