"Atameken" and "Samruk-Kazyna" signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of procurement

The first heads of the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan "Atameken" and "Samruk-Kazyna" met at the site of NCE RK. A new system of procurement was presented during the meeting, which is aimed to support domestic producers in the WTO.

As of now, there will be conducted pre-qualification of suppliers. The Fund with the help of an independent audit will check the potential suppliers for the presence of real production and product quality.

Secondly, there will be introduced categorization of purchases, i.e. goods will be divided into groups. For example, companies buy separately computers, servers, printers and supplies to them (cartridges). The result is a lot of tenders, a lot of different suppliers, price dispersion. And if you combine them into a single group on the basis of the resulting volume, the range of potential suppliers will be narrowed, but it will be specialized, as a result of negotiations the price from the supplier because of a large volume can decrease by 5-25%; the number of procurement procedures is reduced by several times, you can also save on operational expenses of organization of procurements.

Thirdly, there will be applied centralization of procurement. Currently, each company of the Fund buys products on its own. For example, 8 companies of the group of companies "KazMunayGas" buy pipes annually in the amount of 3.6 billion tenge. If the procurements were centralized and held by "KazMunaiGas" itself, the company could save 15% or 540 million tenge due to a large scale procurement.

An additional effect, according to the Fund, will be obtained from savings on procurement. For example, in 2014-2015 in the framework of the pilot of centralized procurements JSC "Samruk-Kazyna" has carried out purchase of 269 vehicles for the more than 30 companies of the Fund. The procurements were carried out by a single expert (previously - not less than 30 buyers). Ta general king into account the number of state, dealing with procurements in the Fund (over 5 thousand people), the savings can be substantial. In practice, the effect of centralized procurement equals 10-15%. In the future, the procurement function can be outsourced completely, said the representative of "Samruk-Kazyna".

"The use of centralized procurement, reduces the costs through best practices, division of procurements  into categories gives us an enormous effect. We are planning to save 382 billion tenge in the next 4 years", - Said the head of business transformation "Samruk-Kazyna" Adamas Ilkyavichyus.

The Head of Procurement at "Samruk-Kazyna" Zhumagali Munzhasarov, in turn, revealed the secret of how to support domestic producers in the new economy. "In connection with the entry to the WTO, those preferences, which were stipulated in our rules, will be cancelled. Therefore, in the new system, we have to provide for certain measures to support domestic producers, which are not inconsistent with WTO rules. I can give an example. One of the criteria that can be used, is the availability of service factories near the place of provision of services, in case the equipment is out of order, it can be quickly repaired. Companies of the Fund, as commercial companies, can expose such a requirement. Accordingly, the domestic manufacturers who have plants in Kazakhstan, compared with foreign ones, will have an advantage", - he said.

Speaking at the meeting, Chairman of the Presidium of the National Chamber of entrepreneurs Timur Kulibayev said that the Fund openly discusses innovations in the procurement rules. "We, as the National Chamber of Commerce, together with the consultant “McKinsey” also participated in the discussion. It should be noted that, NCE representatives participate in the pre-qualification phase and supervision of the procurement procedure. The employees of the Fund made us a favour, giving us an opportunity to participate in the discussion of the feasibility study that is now our employees can participate at the stage of submission of an application for participation in the procurement both at the central level and the regional one. The enterprises of the Fund are spread throughout the country and they will also look for opportunities of cooperation with local regional chambers in the regions to make sure that at the time of preparation of a feasibility study, the discriminatory measures were not undertaken in respect of domestic producers ", - he said.

The head of NCE noted a positive step in terms of increasing the term of signing a contract up to 25 days. "Now there is an opportunity to challenge any violation with respect to the domestic producers in a special organ of the Fund -" Samruk-Kazyna Contract". The supply period was increased up to 60 days to ensure that in preparation of technical specifications the interests of certain suppliers were not lobbied", - he added.

"We will eliminate the negative practices in procurement, which we observed during the last 2 years, and this agreement will determine how we need to tackle more effectively the outstanding challenge", - said Kulibayev.

The domestic producers were also present at the signing of the agreement. General director of "BYELKAMIT" Pavel Beklemishev noted that "even though the regulations of the WTO are very strict, there still can be found options to use them for our own benefit". "WTO rules don’t allow to use financial, tax incentives for domestic producers. But this does not mean that we can’t apply a variety of other methods. For example, the ones named today: "The requirement of close location of maintenance service of a company". It is clear that the Kazakh company will always be in an advantage in this respect. This is a reasonable geographical advantage, and no one can take it from us. So we shouldn’t give up, we must just fight for our rights", - he said.

"And I want to say that sometimes it is very important not so much to create some preferences, but simply to have equal rights. We are very hospitable people, and sometimes accept foreign companies here with open arms, creating better conditions for them than for ourselves. I believe parity should be observed, again, that does not contradict the requirements of the WTO", - he added.

Vice-president of the Association of Furniture and Woodworking Industry of Kazakhstan, director of LLP "TornadoPlus" Igor Protsenko liked the idea of participation of representatives of the National Chamber in tenders of the company "Samruk-Kazyna". "It has long been discussed, we have finally made a practical step. Despite the fact that according to the legislation, the domestic manufacturers are always in priority in procurements of "Samruk-Kazyna", these rules do not always reflect realty. In this case, "Atameken" will act as a body that will oversee these processes. We hope that with this development we will be able to eradicate the old problems. It should also solve the issues of transparency, planning and corruption component ", - he said.

"We are pleased to work with NCE RK, we have the same targets. Therefore, in connection with the entry of Kazakhstan to the WTO, we have decided to present our plans of further improvement of procurement in this hall today", - said in turn the head of "Samruk-Kazyna" Umirzak Shukeyev.

Shukeyev emphasized that the Fund's overall cooperation with NCE in the sphere of procurement was estimated as "very positive". "In 2012, we, together with NEPK" Atameken "(before the creation of NCE) discussed and agreed on our new rules of procurement, the implementation of which has given some results. In 2012 the share of local content in the procurement of the Fund was 63%, now it is 78%", - he said.

Similarly, according to the head of the Fund, the number and amount of long-term contracts increased, which is very important in the conditions of accession of Kazakhstan to the WTO. If in 2012, the companies of the Fund have concluded 213 contracts worth 504 billion, then in 2013, it has signed 383 contracts for 990 billion tenge, in 2014 - 787 contracts worth 1.2 trillion tenge, and in 2015 we concluded 1392 long-term contracts worth 1.4 trillion tenge.