OREANDA-NEWS. On 13 July 2009 was announced, that the Conference “Doing Business Reforms in Kazakhstan: Progress to Date and Planning Ahead” chaired by Mr. Bakhyt Sultanov, Minister of Economy and Budget Planning of the Republic of Kazakhstan, was held in Almaty. At the conference, co-organized by the Government of Kazakhstan, the World Bank, and USAID, about 150 participants from the Government, private sector, and donor organizations for the whole day discussed progress reached after 12 months of undertaking reforms, worked on identifying remaining obstacles, and spelled out a future work program.

High-ranking state officials reported on the recent achievements. Thus, a Working Group on improving Kazakhstan’s position in the World Bank Doing Business rating (as of 2008 Kazakhstan takes the 70th place) was established with all official bodies concerned represented. Five Expert Groups were specifically established to improve seven indicators: “Starting business”, “Dealing with construction permits”, “Property registration”, “Protecting investors”, “Getting credit”, “Trading across borders”, and “Closing business”. As announced during the plenary session the government has made notable improvements in five areas: starting a business, obtaining construction permits, registering property, trading across borders, and paying taxes. Also there is an ongoing work to reform legislation in investor protection and legal rights of creditors (getting credit). These reforms should accelerate after July 2009.

“Improving Kazakhstan’s positions in Doing Business rating is not the ultimate goal”, said Minister of Economy and Budget Planning Bakhyt Sultanov. “The main thing is for our entrepreneurs to feel reduction of administrative barriers and support coming from the state”.

In his turn the World Bank Country Manager in Kazakhstan Sergei Shatalov mentioned that

“Enabling environment for doing business creates new jobs on everyday basis, promotes country flourishing and improves welfare of each Kazakhstan’s citizen".

“In the past year, - said Mr. Shatalov, we evidence real improvements in the area of trade reforms, property registration, construction permits etc. In many areas procedures are being significantly simplified. Some of the innovations are being considered by the Parliament. These steps will have an impact on business climate, country ratings, but more importantly – they will help to overcome the crisis, refurbish the economy, and raise investment attractiveness of Kazakhstan”.

Some areas merit another look. One of these is corporate insolvency, where a priority is to make sure that failing firms are allowed an orderly exit, with the least loss of value to creditors and consumers.

To continue the work started, Mr. Sultanov noted that detailed proposals on how to improve the situation in the short term were elaborated as well as medium term measures were defined.

Ms Stefka Slavova, Senior Economist, Doing Business Technical Reform Unit, World Bank, generally commented: "We were very pleased to see a strong participation both from the Government, private sector and other donors. The thematic breakout sessions in the afternoon were particularly useful. The one on insolvency brought together insolvency administrators, representatives of the State Committee on Insolvent Enterprises and some banks. After a lively discussion, concrete proposals about actions and reforms to the insolvency law and system were put forward. These will be reflected in the Doing Business reform action plan for next year."