At the briefing in the Government’s press center, Vice Chairman of the Board of JSC Kazakh Invest National Company Rustam Isatayev told about the work done to attract foreign investment in 2018 and shared the company's plans.

Isatayev informed that the company has set a goal to attract 8 transnational companies and 2 anchor investors annually to the priority sectors of the economy of Kazakhstan, as well as $25 billion over 5 years to the manufacturing sector. At the end of 2018, this task was completed.

In 2018, eight trans-national companies were attracted with $930 million. In general, with active support from Kazakh Invest, 27 projects worth $3.1 billion have been commissioned. As part of these projects, about 6 thousand permanent jobs were created. Thus, a solar power plant in the Zhambyl region with a production capacity of 50 MW, a cement plant in the Kyzylorda region (1 million tons of cement per year), the first plant in Kazakhstan for the production of dried camel milk in the Turkestan region, began work. Also in 2018, the production of railway wheels in the Pavlodar region (200 thousand pieces of wheels per year) was launched, the production of transformers in Nur-Sultan (100 transformers per year) was commissioned, the modernization of the machine-building plant in Karaganda region was completed (8.5 thousand tons per year) and others. Implementation of projects contributed to the creation of 6 thousand permanent jobs.

Isatayev also spoke about the launch of the Unified National Interactive Internet Resource invest.gov.kz in Kazakh, English and Russian. The site not only provides the necessary information about investing in Kazakhstan, projects requiring investments, but also implements the function of sending inquiries on various issues.

“Any request, initiative or complaint from the investor in a matter of seconds can be issued on this portal. It enters our electronic database and is quickly worked out by our project or country managers,” said the deputy chairman of Kazakh Invest.

At the same time, he said that Kazakh Invest annually forms about 60 niche projects that Kazakhstan business initiates.

“We continue to increase the dynamics of interaction with investors, ensuring monitoring of the implementation of all agreements of the country's leadership with potential and active investors,” said Isatayev.

Kazakh Invest plans in 2019 to ensure the commissioning of 30 projects with the participation of foreign investors for $2 billion. About 40% of the total number of projects put into operation are in new sectors of the economy — renewable energy sources and information and communication technologies. It is planned that total solar power plants will be commissioned at 400 MW, wind farms — by 90 MW and hydro — by 25 MW. The total cost of power plants planned for commissioning will be $680 million.