The Chairman of the Board of the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs delivered a speech during the III Congress of NCE RK

"Today, the structure of NCE covers the entire territory of Kazakhstan, including the district level, single industry towns. 215 people are employed at the central office, it has optimized. Business support centers and centers for servicing entrepreneurs have been established in all regional centers and cities of Astana and Almaty. Since last year, there are regional centers to support entrepreneurs in each regional center. In fact, NCE is represented in all regions and has a complete infrastructure to support entrepreneurship", - informed the head of the Board of NCE.

Myrzakhmetov stressed that the most important function of "Atameken" – is a dialogue between business and Government. "Today the dialogue platform has been formed. We are represented in almost all consultative and advisory bodies of Kazakhstan. Our representatives are also members of all working bodies of the Eurasian Economic Commission, we have started work on engagement of our representatives in the supervisory authorities of the development institutions", - he said.

Speaking about the results of the work of the Chamber of 2.5 years, the head of the Board of NCE called the main directions of work of the organization. "At the end of last year was adopted the medium term strategy of NCE. According to it, we have identified five strategic directions, on which we are constantly working: the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of businesses, improvement of business environment, availability of finances, sales markets infrastructure, the development of human capital and business support services. They will also be supplemented with the issue of tariff formation, which is quite acute in the regions", - he informed.

Ablay Myrzakhmetov briefly spoke about each direction of the work done by the Chamber. On the core activities of NCE – protection of the rights of entrpreneurs - "Atameken" received more than 12 thousand appeals within 2.5 years. 42% of these complaints were solved positively, thus, saving more than 33 billion tenge for business.

According to the head of the Board of NCE, land and urban development issues constitute more than 20% of all appeals, in the second place came tax issues, on the third – the procurement issues.

Chamber of Entrepreneurs is actively working to improve the business environment. Since 2011, through the efforts of NCE, the number of appeals decreased from 1115 to 310.

Availability of finances, sales market infrastructure, procurement – these are the range of issues to work on.

"The new edition of the Law "On public procurement” has already entered into force. Most entrepreneurs complained on technical specifications. Now we have introduced norm of their preliminary discussion. The institute of prequalification selection has been introduced, an individual certificate tool of which allows to admit bona fide domestic producers. With regard to public procurement, there are strict conditions now, penalties for delay. Now there is parity for compliance. If you do not pay on time or the appropriate administrator of the budget does not fulfill its obligations, then it is already liable to the entrpreneur", - said Ablay Myrzakhmetov.

There were also good results with long-term contracts in the field of food catering at schools - nearly 100 billion tenge were withdrawn from public procurement. Domestic producers entered into 100 long-term contracts with national companies worth 410 billion tenge thanks to NCE.

In the issue of human capital development, according to Myrzakhmetov, NCE has made managed to fix dual education at the legislative level. "Practical training in the curricula increased to 60%. Business can change the standards of education to fit its needs. 17.5 thousand participants are involved in the program, more than 1,000 contracts were signed", - he said.

The function of provision of service support to business was transferred to NCE in 2015, and already in the first year "Atameken" tripled the volume of rendered services. Entrepreneurs got 10-12 thousand consultations, 15 thousand people have been trained at business schools. This year, the scale will increase.

In addition, NCE has concentrated its efforts on increasing the local content in the procurement. "We formed a roster of 4180 companies  - domestic producers. Through an industrial certificate, we will indentify the capacity of each producer.

Today, the issues of employment is particularly acute for the business community. "In December, we decided to implement the Road map of employment. We have identified the real needs of the market. Relevant professional training and further employment will be done to eliminate the gap", - said the head of the Board.

Another important and effective component in matters of employment is a microcredit program, which was launched in six areas, loans have already been issued.

NCE stands for maximum transparency of the privatization process. There was also raised the question of the necessity to conduct an audit of all municipal republican property in the framework of denationalization. Given the state of the business, the possibility of payment by installments is possible.

Business development in the countryside. Last December, the Chamber signed an agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture on the joint work plan in this area. "A billion tenge has been allocated. In all regional centers will be created centers of agricultural competence. The second area for agribusiness - is creation of co-operatives. Today, nearly 170 agricultural cooperatives were created with participation of the Chamber: 75% - in livestock, 25% - in the plant cultivation", - said Myrzakhmetov.

The head of the Board of "Atameken" told also about the new project of the Chamber – the Map of Regional Development of Enterpreneurship, which tells the specifics of each region, administrative barriers that exist, provides a list of large and medium-sized enterprises, as well as a pool of projects, interesting for investors. "Map of regional development is a navigator. 43 thousand visitors, including foreign ones have checked the website of the Map.

As for simplification of export and import operations, NCE adopted a joint plan with the Government, according to which the number of documents was reduced almost 2 times.

On tax issues NCE proposes to introduce a non-judicial system so that business has an opportunity before the court to appeal the decision of the tax authorities.

"NCE Board is aware that there is still a lot of flaws, on which we will work. We understand this, we look for suggestions and criticism and willing to continue to improve our work to fulfill the main task – to support domestic business", - concluded Ablay Myrzakhmetov.