The main result of 2017 for the Kazakh economy was the activation of recovery processes with the country's progressive transition to higher growth rates, Timur Suleimenov noted. According to the preliminary results of 2017, GDP growth reached 4%.
The main catalysts for growth were the expansion of production in the traded sectors, increased investment activity and the gradual recovery of domestic demand. The factors of positive external conditions include higher price conjuncture for oil and metals, as well as improvement of the economic situation in the states of the main trading partners — the EU, Russia and China. Following the results of 11 months, exports to Russia grew by 33%, the EU — 31% and China — 34.9%.
Despite the outstripping growth of extractive industries, the sources of GDP growth were concentrated in the non-raw-material segment of the economy. Thus, out of 4% of GDP growth, the share of non-oil sector contribution was 60%. In general, the real sector recorded a synchronous increase in production in virtually all sectors of the economy.
The greatest growth is observed in industry at 7.1%, transport — 4.8%, communications — 3.3% and trade — 3.2%. The fastest pace was demonstrated by the mining industry due to growth in oil production.
The manufacturing industry shows a five-year maximum growth rate of 5.1%, which is mainly facilitated by the implementation of projects within the Industrialization Map.
In January-November 2017, 62 projects for the amount of about 850 billion tenge were introduced through SPIID and 5.5 thousand jobs were created.
The Minister particularly emphasized the rapid development of the pharmaceutical industry, whose output increased by 41.8%. The light industry increased production by 7.3% due to the launch of 9 investment projects and an increase in the Kazakhstan content of backbone companies.
The increase in demand gave an additional impetus to chemistry, metallurgy, oil refining, and the food industry, where growth was 7.2%, 5.9%, 5.1% and 4.1%, respectively.
In addition, the machine building industry recorded a sustained recovery growth of 5.6%. In agriculture, growth was 2.9%: output of plant growing increased by 2.2%, livestock — by 3.9%.
The large-scale Expo-2017 exhibition attracted a significant number of tourists who increased demand in the domestic market, expanding the opportunities for SMEs in the retail segments, restaurant and hotel business and the whole service industry.
In 2017, the volume of investments in fixed assets increased by 5.5%. For the first 11 months of 2017, the main growth in investments was directed to agriculture, where growth was 29.3%, trade - 21.8%, construction - 11.8%, communications - 9.5% and industry - 3.8%.
For 9 months of 2017, Kazakhstan attracted more than $15.7 billion of gross foreign direct investment, which is 5.3% more than the same period in 2016.
In general, the country's foreign trade turnover increased by 25.1% to $69.5 billion.
"Sustained economic growth was accompanied by an improvement in social indicators. So, for 9 months of the reporting period, the number of employees increased by 53.1 thousand people and amounted to 6.4 million people on October 1. This helps keep unemployment at a low level of 5%," T. Suleimenov summed up.
Preliminary results of the year in the banking sector were announced by the Chairman of the Board of the National Bank Daniyar Akishev. Report on the preliminary results of the execution of the republican budget for 2017 was made by the Minister of Finance B. Sultanov.
Summarizing the results, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Bakytzhan Sagintayev noted that according to preliminary data, in 2017, the President's task was fulfilled to ensure the country's economic growth by 4%. Branch ministries and regions provided economic growth in their indicators. This indicator was achieved due to the well-coordinated work of the Government and akimats.
Source: primeminister.kz
