As part of its October 2024 Concept of Investment Policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, on December 31, 2024, the acting minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan issued Order No. 11-1-4/746 (the Order) amending the rules for organizing a "one-stop-shop" for investors and the procedure for interaction in attracting investments. The Order entered into force on January 19, 2025.
MAIN CHANGES
- The national digital investment platform (the Investment Platform) has been launched to ensure the digitalization of the process of attracting investments, as well as to support and record investment projects. The Investment Platform is used to register and record investment projects in all sectors of Kazakhstan's economy.
- The Order sets out procedure for forming regional and national pools of investment projects. The regional pool includes investment projects with investments of up to 150,000 monthly calculation indices (MCI) (approximately $2 million), while the national pool includes investment projects with investments over 150,000 MCI, as well as investment projects implemented on the basis of investment contracts.
- A "green corridor" mechanism for investors has been introduced. Green corridor is a special procedure for eligible investment projects that provides for accelerated rendering of government services.
GREEN CORRIDOR FOR INVESTORS
- The amendments approve the methodology for calculating the score of an investment project for purposes of its inclusion in the green corridor. This methodology includes such criteria as amount of investments, project technology, presence of the investor in The Global 2000, and social orientation of the project.
- Projects meeting the criteria of the green corridor receive accelerated government services. The decision-making process on such projects, in case any problematic issues are identified, takes place at the nearest meeting of the Council for Attracting Investments, an advisory and consultative government body responsible for the timely implementation of investment projects and reporting directly to the Kazakhstan President.
- Green corridor projects with investment exceeding 7.5 million MCI (approximately $55.6 million) are automatically transferred to the Task Force (a subdivision of national company Kazakh Invest JSC) for further support.
CONCLUSION
The introduced changes are aimed at setting digitalization of activities on attraction and support of investors at all stages of implementation of investment projects, as well as at the acceleration of launching investment projects in priority sectors of Kazakhstan's economy thanks to the green corridor mechanism.