Vice-Minister of Trade and Integration Kairat Torebayev spoke about measures to develop non-primary exports in Kazakhstan at the Central Communications Service, press service of the Ministry of Trade and Integration reports. Last year, we reached a record level of exports of processed products at $26.5 billion. This trend has continued this year”, – the Vice Minister said. In the first quarter of 2023, the total volume of foreign trade in processed products increased by 32% compared to the previous indicator of the same period last year and amounted to $ 18.8 billion. Exports of non-primary goods for the same period amounted to 5.9 billion US dollars, showing an increase of 7.6%. A significant increase in export deliveries was shown by a number of product names. Thus, sales of flour abroad last year increased by 70.8%, petroleum products – by 52.2%, passenger cars – by 46%, sunflower oil – by 19.9%, and fertilizer exports increased 2.8 times. In three months of 2023, Kazakhstan sent finished export products to 106 countries of the world, while the list of importing countries expanded compared to the same period of the previous year. The new markets for Kazakhstan’s exports are the Syrian Arab Republic, Senegal, North Macedonia, Somalia, Guinea, Cyprus. The main buyers of processed products from Kazakhstan are traditionally Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Turkey, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Afghanistan. According to the results of last year, there are 650 active exporters of non-primary products in the country, which have been exporting for at least three years. Of these, 463 enterprises took advantage of non-financial measures of state support. These are export acceleration programs, launching on marketplaces, participation in trade missions and reimbursement of part of the export costs. Each measure shows the result in the form of a return on the invested budget money. So, according to the acceleration program, the refund for one budget tenge amounted to 158 tenge, for withdrawal to marketplaces – 213 tenge, for service support measures – 652 tenge”, – the Vice Minister of Trade and Integration cited such data at a briefing in the CCS. Last year, thanks to the Accelerator’s support, 38 export contracts worth about 260 million US dollars were concluded. As of today, 2 contracts have already been signed 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. Negotiations are also underway with South Korea on the supply of Kazakhstani food products. Since the beginning of 2023, 5 trade and economic missions have been conducted through QazTrade in such countries as Vietnam (Hanoi), Azerbaijan (Baku), Iran (Tehran), China (Xi’an), Uzbekistan (Tashkent). As a result of the trade and economic missions, export contracts worth more than $300 million were signed. 5 more trade and economic missions will be organized by the end of the year. In addition, it is planned to present 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. Another relevant tool for promoting goods to foreign markets provides for the withdrawal of domestic exporters to an electronic trading platform Alibaba.com . In 2020-2022, 220 companies were placed on the trading platform, their total sales amounted to about 225 million US dollars. This year, 70 companies will have access to golden marketplace accounts. As part of the recent visit of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the city of Xi’an, the National Pavilion was opened on an electronic platform “JD.com”. In addition, in March, the construction of the Ozon fulfillment center in Astana was completed, at the site of which 15 thousand Kazakhstani sellers were registered, their sales volume exceeded 10 billion tenge in 2022. One of the most popular measures of state support is the reimbursement of part of the costs to exporters. By the end of 2022, the state returned the costs in the amount of 8.8 billion tenge. The main recipients of funds were small businesses, their share was about 48%. These are companies operating in the fields of food production and wholesale trade. According to the Ministry of Trade and Integration, as a result of this support measure, the geography of exports expanded to three countries, Cyprus, France and Japan were added. The range of goods for which cost recovery is carried out has grown by 53 positions. In 2023, applications for cost recovery have already been accepted since April 21 and will end on July 21. By the end of the year, QazTrade plans to approve applications in the amount of about 10 billion tenge, which will increase the number of enterprises that have used this support measure to three hundred.
Image | Ministry of Trade and Integration
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