OREANDA-NEWS. August 12, 2013. Kazakh Prime Minister Serik Akhmetov has held a meeting with members of the Kazakhstan Union of Machine Builders at Ukimet Uyi.

First Vice Minister of Industry and New Technologies Albert Rau spoke on the development of Kazakhstan’s machine building sector.

According to him, the industry has positive dynamics of growth, but there is great potential for more rapid development.

"For the first half of the year the volume of production in the sector amounted to 367 billion tenge. By yearend we may reach 5 billion U.S. dollars," Rau said.

Also, there is an increase in the share of machinery in the structure of the manufacturing industry. During January-June 2013 the share of this industry in comparison with the same period last year increased by 2% to 13.2%.

According to him, in the first half of this year there were produced 45 diesel locomotives, thus the production increased 1.6 times, car production increased 2.2 times - more than 16 thousand units, in the oil and gas engineering industry production grew by 31%, in mining - 12%.

"The government provides support to the industry. At present, 15 companies entered the program "Productivity 2020". 57 projects totaling 197 billion tenge are implemented as part of the Industrialization Map," he said.

A.Rau made a proposal to consider the introduction of state subsidies of consumer loans for the purchase of domestically produced vehicles. "This is a very good tool. Therefore, we urge state agencies to consider this issue," the Vice Minister added.

Chairman of the Union of Machine Builders, Majilis deputy M. Pshembayev told about the development of machine building industry as well.

He noted that over the three years of the state program of forced industrial innovative development Kazakhstan’s machine building sector grew more than 2.5 times. "This year, we forecast that output will reach 800 billion tenge, and by 2015 we expect more than 1 trillion tenge. This was possible due to the support of the state, adoption of the state program of forced industrial innovative development and contribution of machine builders," he stressed.

Summing up the meeting, Serik Akhmetov noted that current indicators of the sector show the effectiveness of the policy of the state. However, work in this direction should be continued.

In this regard he instructed the Ministry of Industry and New Technologies and the Union of Machine Builders to address the development of the design bureau of electrical products and the development of cost-recovery mechanism for the development of new types of machinery products.

In addition, Akhmetov instructed to study the issues on the development of the draft law "On the offset policy" and sectoral program on machine building sector development until 2020 with account of the objectives of the second five-year industrialization plan.

"The Head of State is closely monitoring the development of the machine building industry. The Government, for its part, is ready to continue to support the industry," the Prime Minister concluded.