According to press service of the Ministry of Trade and Integration, measures to develop non-primary exports in Kazakhstan were spoken about by Vice-Minister of Trade and Integration Kairat Torebayev at the Central Communications Service.
He said that a record level of exports of processed products ($26.5 billion) was reached last year and this trend has continued this year.
An increase by 32% compared to the previous indicator of the same period last year was reached by the total volume of foreign trade in processed products in the first quarter of 2023 (totally $ 18.8 billion). An increase of 7.6% was shown by exports of non-primary goods for the same period (5.9 billion US dollars).
Export deliveries of a number of product names rose significantly last year: flour (70.8%), petroleum products (52.2%), passenger cars (46%), sunflower oil (19.9%) and fertilizers (2.8 times).
Kazakh finished products were sent to 106 countries of the world in Q1 2023, expanding the list of importing countries compared to the same period of the previous year, adding new markets, such as the Syrian Arab Republic, Senegal, North Macedonia, Somalia, Guinea, Cyprus.
Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Turkey, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Afghanistan are traditionally the main buyers of processed products from Kazakhstan.
The results of last year show that there are 650 active exporters of non-primary products in the country, which have been exporting for at least three years. Advantage of non-financial measures of state support, such as export acceleration programs, launching on marketplaces, participation in trade missions and reimbursement of part of the export costs, was taken by 463 enterprises.
The result in the form of a return on the invested budget money is shown by each measure. The Vice Minister of Trade and Integration cited data of the acceleration program at a briefing in the CCS that reports that the refund of one budget tenge amounted to 158 tenge, for withdrawal to marketplaces – 213 tenge, for service support measures – 652 tenge.
The Accelerator’s support made it possible to conclude 38 export contracts worth about 260 million US dollars last year. As of today, they have already signed 2 contracts for the supply of products to Uzbekistan for $19 million, 1 long-term contract for the supply of household chemicals to Russia for a total of $1.3 million (600 million a year) and 2 more contracts for the supply of copper products to the Chinese market for $5 million. The supply of Kazakhstani food products to South Korea is also a subject of negotiations.
Since the beginning of 2023, they have conducted 5 trade and economic missions through QazTrade in such countries as Vietnam (Hanoi), Azerbaijan (Baku), Iran (Tehran), China (Xi’an), Uzbekistan (Tashkent). These trade and economic missions made it possible to sign export contracts worth more than $300 million.
They will organize 5 more trade and economic missions by the end of the year. In addition, the presentation of the national stands of the Republic of Kazakhstan at the annual Shanghai Import Exhibition in Shanghai (China), the 8th EXPO China-Eurasia XUAR and others is planned.
An electronic trading platform Alibaba.com is another relevant tool for promoting goods to foreign markets. The total sales of 220 companies placed on the trading platform amounted to about 225 million US dollars in 2020-2022. This year, access to golden marketplace accounts will be provided to 70 companies.
They opened the National Pavilion on an electronic platform “JD.com as part of the recent visit of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the city of Xi’an. In addition, they completed the construction of the Ozon fulfillment center in Astana in March and registered 15 thousand Kazakhstani sellers at its site with their sales volume exceeding 10 billion tenge in 2022.
The reimbursement of part of the costs to exporters is one of the most popular measures of state support. The costs in the amount of 8.8 billion tenge were returned by the state by the end of 2022.
The share of small businesses (companies operating in the fields of food production and wholesale trade) among the recipients of funds was about 48%.
The Ministry of Trade and Integration reports that this support measure made the geography of exports add three countries (Cyprus, France and Japan) and the range of goods for which cost recovery is carried grow by 53 positions.
Companies can apply for cost recovery from April 21 to July 21 2023. It is planned to approve applications in the amount of about 10 billion tenge by the end of the year, and the number of enterprises that have used this support measure will be increased to three hundred.
Source Link