+20° / +8°C No 16 (178) www.astanatimes.comWEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019

INSIDE

US$ 1 = 386.91 KZT € 1 = 430.09 KZT 1 = 5.86 KZT

NATIONSexual abuse punishment should be toughened, deputies and activists agree A2Government for Citizens to open new front offices in Nur-Sultan, Almaty A2

ECONOMYKazakh PM visits Kostanai Region, examines region’s industrial development A4Ministry of National Economy suggests price controls for essential food items A4

EDITORIAL&OPINIONKazakhstan renews call to end nuclear weapons testing on 70th anniversary of first Soviet test A6ASKARULY: Kazakhstan should take bold steps to grow e-commerce, catch up with global sector leaders A6

BUSINESSKazakhstan digitises public procurement to increase transparency and competition A7Petropavlovsk company begins producing refrigeration cars A8

NATION&CAPITALGolovkin to face Derevyanchenko in New York for vacant IBF World Middleweight title B1Budget-friendly summer trip to Burabay – capital’s favourite retreat B6

Nazarbayev urges new ideas for Nur Otan party to meet needs of people

By Aidana Yergaliyeva

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakhstan’s First President and current chair-man of the Nur Otan party, Nursul-tan Nazarbayev, suggested at the party’s Aug. 21 expanded political council meeting progressing the party’s activities to better meet the challenges of the 21st century and the needs of the public.

“We understand that a new pe-riod of party development has begun. The world has changed. Nur Otan is a leading political force and must mobilise society so that no one goes astray,” he said.

“We must enter the 30 advanced countries. The industrial pro-gramme, the development of ag-riculture, the growth of medicine and education are the goals of our party. We must all mobilise in this direction,” he added.

To get into the top 30, Kazakh-stan should learn from the best practices of the “Asian Tigers” such as Singapore and South Ko-

rea, whose values align with Ka-zakhstan’s, he said.

“We are not Catholics or Prot-estants. If taken immediately from the West, this will not work… We need leaders and a strong party. The Asian Tigers that we looked up to made a breakthrough from third world countries to first,” said Nazarbayev, stressing that “conti-nuity of the course is critical.” The Nur Otan will celebrate its 28th anniversary this year.

Nazarbayev called on party members to focus on solving peo-ple’s everyday problems.

“Show what you are capable of. That is, [we need] to work closely in the regions with people – with each person,” he emphasised.

In the upcoming Mazhilis (lower house of Parliament) and maslikhat (regional or city assembly) elec-tions, Nur Otan “must create the conditions to nominate the most active and worthy members of the party. I offer a reload programme on the topic ‘Trust. Dialogue. Con-fidence in the Future,’” he said.

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Repair of Arys almost complete, new construction to continue

By Dilshat Zhussupova

NUR-SULTAN – More than 7,000 of 7,613 damaged houses in Arys were repaired as of Aug. 21 by the Akmola, Atyrau, East Kazakh-stan, Karaganda, Kostanai, Kyzy-lorda, North Kazakhstan, Turkestan and Zhambyl Regions. The homes were heavily damaged June 24 by a large explosion at a munitions ware-house nearby.

The explosion and resulting fires, which authorities determined was caused by fire safety violations dur-ing the warehouse’s construction and repair, killed two soldiers and a civilian and caused widespread damage before it was contained by firefighters, reported the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Inter-nal Affairs’ Emergency Situations Committee. An 8-year-old boy, in-jured during evacuation from Arys, died Aug. 2 at a Nur-Sultan hospital, bringing the casualty count to four.

Eighty-five percent of houses in Arys were damaged to one degree or

another after the warehouse explo-sion. Turkestan Region Akim (Gov-ernor) Umirzak Shukeyev tasked the regions with completing major repair and construction in the town in Sep-tember, a new deadline given that the workload exceeded initial estimates.

The construction of new houses in Arys, which is more time-con-suming and resource-intensive than repair, will continue throughout September. Twenty-three houses were built from scratch as of Aug.

21, and another 447 severely-dam-aged houses will be rebuilt. Fifty-four of 66 social facilities in Arys, including hospitals, schools and kindergartens, have resumed op-eration as of Aug. 21. The repair of Arys’ central streets, such as Akym-bekov Street and Kunayev Street, and roads in the Koktem microdis-trict will be complete in September. Road repair will entail replacing as-phalt and installing new sidewalks.

The Nur Otan party monitors

Arys’ timely restoration, and its Turkestan Region branch resolved 126 of 175 restoration-related ap-peals from people in the town as of Aug. 21. At a recent meeting in the Turkestan Region, Nur Otan party First Deputy Chairman in the Turkestan Region Beisen Tazhiba-yev assured that all appeals will be addressed. A one-time compensa-tory payment of 100,000 tenge (US$259.36) to each of Arys’ resi-dents, a social support measure set by Kazakh Prime Minister Askar Mamin, was also distributed by the government in August.

Arys volunteer Yevgeny Khisme-tov from the Karaganda Region was not deterred by the difficulty of trav-elling to and living in the town shortly after the warehouse explosion, when the town was mostly closed to entry and volunteer headquarters had yet to be set up. The founder of a charity foundation and father of three vol-unteered to provide moral support, distribute humanitarian aid and work in the town’s repair and construction for 50 days until the town was mostly restored. He recently returned to his home in the Karaganda Region.

“I do not think that I did some-thing extraordinary,” he told Ka-zpravda.kz, noting the resilience ex-hibited by the people in Arys. “I just could not sit at home, knowing that there, in Arys, people needed help.”

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The whole country has been helping to rebuild Arys after the June 24 incident.

Wildberries to open branch in AIFC, increase distribution capabilities

By Yerbolat Uatkhanov

NUR-SULTAN – Wildberries, Russia’s largest international on-line retailer, will be opening a branch within the Astana Interna-tional Financial Centre (AIFC) and building a large distribution centre in the country.

“We are confident in the high potential of our partnership with local producers, small and medi-um-sized businesses of Kazakh-stan; therefore, we are investing

in the creation of infrastructure and educational projects that will increase the sales of producers of the republic on Wildberries,” said company director general Tatyana Bakalchuk.

The distribution centre will in-crease the turnover of Kazakh manufacturers, significantly re-duce their logistics costs and ex-pand the range of local products on the company site, as well as create new jobs in the country, she added.

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‘We can win the struggle for a world without nuclear weapons,’

says activistBy Saltanat Boteu

NUR-SULTAN – The struggle for a nuclear weapons free world can be won because people under-stand its importance, as represent-ed by the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have signed The ATOM Project peti-tion against nuclear weapons test-ing, said ATOM Project Honorary Ambassador and Nevada-Semey international anti-nuclear weapons activist Karipbek Kuyukov in an interview with The Astana Times.

“I urge everyone to visit our project’s website theatomproject.org and see how hundreds of thou-sands of people around the world have voted against nuclear weap-ons. People understand and have joined with us,” he said.

According to Kuyukov, the im-portance of the struggle and his activity can also be seen in Ka-zakhstan’s recent ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of

Nuclear Weapons signed July 3 by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

Kuyukov was born in a small village of Yegindybulak near the Soviet-era Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site. His parents were ex-posed to the Soviet Union’s nucle-ar weapons testing at the site and, as a result, Kuyukov, was born without arms. This, however, did not stop him from becoming a rec-ognised painter who has dedicated his art and life to achieving a nu-clear weapons free world.

“My favourite pastime is to paint pictures, touching on a nuclear theme and, probably, show in my works how scary this is. I have a series of portraits of victims who I personally know, who still live in Semey and those who have al-ready left. There are landscapes (themes)… There are many, be-cause I have visited many places in our vast world,” said the activist.

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Jezkiik 2019 Ulytau Festival celebrates Kazakhstan’s ethnocultural tourism

By Nazira Kozhanova

NUR-SULTAN – Jezkiik 2019 Ulytau Festival brought together the Ulytau International Tourism Forum, the International Rural Youth Forum and the Ethnic Music and Food Festival on Aug. 23-25.

“Located at the intersection of ancient civilisations and the largest transport arteries, Kazakhstan for centuries remains one of the most im-portant cultural, historical and spiritu-al centres of the Eurasian continent,” said Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in his speech at the Aug. 24 panel on the role of Kazakh-stan’s historical and cultural legacy in tourism development at the Ultytau International Tourism Forum.

“Among the sacred places of our country, a special place is occupied by the lands of Ulytau. This is the sa-cred cradle of the Kazakh people, a symbol of the unity of the nation and a fierce struggle for independence. And today, one of the important tasks is to develop the tourism po-tential of this historic place,” he said.

Tokayev also announced the es-tablishment of the Tourism Univer-sity that will train personnel for the

tourism industry as well as plans to develop a website containing infor-mation about domestic tourist attrac-tions. The website will be developed by the Kazakh Ministry of Culture and Sport and the Ministry of Digi-tal Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry. Tokayev also emphasised the need to attract en-trepreneurs to build vacation accom-modations, provide catering options and establish recreation centres.

In the first part of the forum, researchers and industry experts discussed the role of Kazakhstan’s history and culture in its tourism industry. They discussed topics, in-cluding challenges facing Kazakh ethnocultural tourism development and the Ulytau region archaeologi-cal findings.

The Silk Road tourism develop-ment expert of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation Alla Peressolova talked about global trends in the tourism industry and how the Central Asian region could seize them. She emphasised the emerging trends of sustainability and locals’ experiences, arguing that Central Asian countries have a great potential in incorporating these trends in their tourism agen-

das, calling the Silk Road “human-ity’s most important road.”

Local experts, such as President of Avalon History and Geography Society Vitaly Shuptar, also shared their experiences launching Uly-tau ethnocultural tourism products. They outlined challenges to Ulytau ethnocultural tourism development, such as a lack of transportation and housing options as well as a lack of interest from locals and a shortage of qualified tourism workers.

The panel of experts also empha-sised the tourism potential of the fo-rum in Ulytau. Particularly, Mongo-lia Sustainable Tourism Centre Board Chairman Gansukh Dambi praised the Jochi Khan Mausoleum that is lo-cated near the Ulytau mountains.

“We knew that the mausoleum was in this area, but we never saw it with our own eyes. This is a holy place, and I am sure that there is good energy for the future of all those who came here with good thoughts, good wishes. This is a historical path that unites all of us,” said Dambi.

As a result of the forum, 40 rep-resentatives of international tourism companies signed an agreement to launch tours to the Ulytau moun-

tains from Germany, Spain and the United Arab Emirates.

The Jezkiik 2019 festival also hosted music and food festivals, as well as the International Rural Youth Forum. The music festival hosted the Morescanova band from Italy, the Carmen Guerreiro Flamenco band from Spain, the Serbian Abrasevic band and the Dunajbanda band from Hungary as well as Kazakh artists.

“I first heard about this festival from Mexican musicians. They spoke of it very well. In addi-tion, this festival is young, and we wanted to take part in it, to discover something new for ourselves. Our group has been touring since 1991, we have been to many countries, but we came to Kazakhstan for the first time. This is a very interesting experience for us,” Maria Guerreiro Guitterez from the Carmen Guerre-ro Flamenco band told KazInform.

The national food festival fea-tured 45 yurt houses offering Ka-zakh national food.

“I really enjoyed the beshbarmak (national meal) and the horse rid-ers show (Nomad Stunts show),” said one of the festival visitors. “It was nice to have this festival in our region.”

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev (C) poses for the photo with young activists at the Jezkiik 2019 Ulytau Festival on Aug. 24. Ph

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NEWS IN BRIEF

Government for Citizens to open new front offices in Nur-Sultan, Almaty

By Aidana Yergaliyeva

NUR-SULTAN – Government for Citizens state corporation will be opening new front offices in the capital and Almaty by the end of August to reduce the large queues for public services, said company head Assemgul Baltasheva in her Aug. 13 Facebook post.

The cities’ existing public ser-vice centres (TsONs) provided

more than 3.5 million services in the first six months of the year. According to the state corpora-tion, the demand for specialised and auto TsONs, in particular, has grown following the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ July 1 reform which closed police registration and examination units throughout the country. Part of their func-tions have been transferred to Government for Citizens, said Baltasheva.

Almaty auto TsONs accounted for one-quarter of the more than 1.5 million services the centres have provided throughout the country.

“Here (in Almaty), there is the largest car market in the country where residents of all of Kazakh-stan’s regions prefer to buy and sell cars. Taking into account all these facts and appeals of citi-zens, we decided to open a new sixth specialised TsON in Almaty

through internal optimisation,” she added.

To relieve Almaty’s specialised centres, additional specialised TsONs will open in the Karasai and Talgar districts of the Almaty Region by the end of September. The Alatau district’s TsON No. 2 in Almaty resumed its work after a month-long technical break.

Shymkent will also open a spe-cialised TsON, the third in the city.

“I want to share other good news

for Atyrau and Turkestan citizens. We are now repairing the spacious and comfortable buildings where the TsONs of these cities will move. Already in November, resi-dents of Atyrau and Turkestan will be able to receive public services in more comfortable conditions,” said Baltasheva.

To minimise the centres’ over-all queues, Digital Kazakhstan organised large-scale trainings for receiving citizens’ government services online, she added.

Minister of Digital Develop-ment, Innovation and Aerospace Industry Askar Zhumagaliyev spoke July 3 of the need to open new front offices, especially auto TsONs.

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He also noted the next elections will take place based on the cur-rent party lists system and will be held on time, in the constitution-ally prescribed terms.

Nazarbayev also stressed the need for active and electable party members.

“Such active members must be educated. First, they must be found and they must be elected. I have al-ready said we have over 5,000 pri-mary organisations uniting almost one million party members. To in-tensify their work, look, rearrange these ranks and identify leaders,” he said.

Nazarbayev suggested look-ing for those leaders among civic activists and non-members from non-governmental organisations and creating conditions for them to work, accepting their proposals and allowing their suggestions to be implemented.

The party’s anti-corruption programme, implemented by the Kazakh Government, automated 80 percent of public services and achieved 70 percent of overall programme indicators. Yet, Naz-

arbayev continued, Nur Otan has yet to fully unite society and estab-lish social corruption intolerance similar to Singapore’s.

“In Singapore, the order is if someone is involved in corruption, then he who knows about corrup-tion will be imprisoned if he does not tell. Or you fly on an airplane; the first class is empty. If the boss goes to first class, he will be fired because he violated the civil serv-ant’s ethics,” he said.

Nazarbayev also noted com-

plaints that some Kazakh universi-ties force students to pay bribes to pass exams.

“I instruct the Security Coun-cil to study the issue at universi-ties and submit it for discussion. Young people themselves must join in the fight against corrup-tion.” said Nazarbayev.

He also proposed nominating Nurlan Nigmatulin, the Speaker of the Mazhilis, as chairperson of the party faction in the lower house.

“Honestly, many factions work

inefficiently. Before the budget is adopted, the maslikhat faction must approve it… It is crucial to increase party responsibility at all levels of government,” he said.

To demonstrate party activity to voters, Nazarbayev proposed holding a special government meeting with the mazhilis faction. The heads of state bodies from the prime minister to the regional akims (governors) should meet with citizens.

“All our decisions are for the people and for the good of the peo-ple. There is a need to take tight control over the implementation of all initiatives and promises,” he said.

Nur Otan must also consider av-enues to better allow the dissemi-nation of information, he added.

Nazarbayev also encouraged the participation of young people in the party.

“Now, 60,000 Kazakhs are stud-ying outside Kazakhstan, maybe even more. They come back to work and you need to deal with them,” he said. “We are sitting and do not want to give up a chair, but we see that they work better,” he added.

Nazarbayev also called for party to reconsider the way the Kazakh government manages its economy.

“Economic growth is the main indicator of success. Now, our growth is around 4 percent… We once said that we need 5 percent, but now we need 7.5 percent. For this, we have the strength and op-portunity,” he said.

He suggested a three-pronged approach, beginning with revising taxes and “giving relief to small, medium-sized businesses so that they have money left for develop-ment,” he said. It would be fol-lowed by working with bankrupt companies that cannot pay their loans and modifying the method of issuing public procurement.

The latter, he noted, “is the most opaque and corrupt. Approximate-ly 60 percent of public procure-ment in the amount of one trillion tenge (US$2.6 billion) is carried out from one source.”

Nazarbayev also indicated large budget funds are spent on main-taining unnecessary settlements.

“These are parasites. We have already said that there are 7,700 settlements, of which 1,800 (will) need to be developed. As for the rest, well, the steppe is big, huge. There are 10 houses on one hill and on another,” he said.

Nazarbayev entrusted Nur Otan First Deputy Chair Bauyrzhan Baybek to oversee the implemen-tations of his instructions.

Nazarbayev urges new ideas...

Kazakhstan’s First President and Nur Otan party Chair Nursultan Nazarbayev at the party’s Aug. 21 expanded political council meeting.

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The dream of young Almaty sport climber Rishat Khaibul-lin has come true, as he won the bronze medal at the Internation-al Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) World Championship at Esforta Arena in Hachioji, Ja-pan. As a result, he has qualified to represent Kazakhstan in the combined discipline, which is making its Olympic debut in To-kyo. Khaibullin started the final stage of the championship with a victory in the speed climb-ing portion. He placed eighth in bouldering and fifth in lead climbing, allowing him to climb the podium alongside three-time world champions.

More than 300 young people from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan gathered for the Aug. 22-23 Central Asia Youth Festival in Almaty, reported the city aki-mat (city administration) press service. The festival, organised by the akimat and the Founda-tion of the First President, was dedicated to the Year of Youth in Kazakhstan. The purpose was to create a platform for regional integration, establish coopera-tion between young people from Central Asian countries, develop their potential as leaders and for youth to develop political litera-cy and have an active civil posi-tion. International political and public figures spoke on topics such as progress in information technologies and cybersecu-rity, professional development, migration, intellectual capac-ity development, volunteering, healthy lifestyle promotion, ed-ucation accessibility and multi-ethnic society.

The second Net-Free Water-bodies large-scale environmen-tal campaign launched Aug. 17. The purpose is to purify water-ways from abandoned and ille-gally installed fishing nets by trawling and draw attention to the problem of lake and river pollution and fish and waterfowl conservation, reported Bnews.kz. “Subbotniks (Saturday vol-unteer environmental activi-ties) are becoming a tradition for Kazakh people. Today, over 95 kilometres of nets and 121 tonnes of garbage were col-lected at 79 reservoirs… I thank all the participants,” wrote Min-ister of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources Magzum Mirzagaliev. More than 5,000 individuals participated in the campaign.

BeInTech CEO Baghdat Mus-sin has launched a free mobile app for entrepreneurs that will replace cash registers and en-able entrepreneurs throughout the country to save 100,000 tenge (US$259.36), reported Tengrinews.kz. “According to the law, all entrepreneurs must purchase a cash register that has the function of online data transfer to the governmental tax office in a year. To solve this is-sue, we launched the reKASSA project – this is a cash register app available on mobile phones. The application is and will al-ways be free,” wrote Mussin on his Facebook page. The app will cover the basic needs of entre-preneurs with even the smallest businesses. Receipts can be sent to customers via instant messen-ger, mail and SMS. Electronic checks are as eligible as paper ones and can also be printed, if necessary.

Secretary of State Marat Tazhin spoke about the work be-ing done to Latinise the Kazakh alphabet during a national com-mission meeting on the imple-menting the Ruhani Zhangyru (Modernisation of Kazakhstan’s Identity) programme. Latin let-ters will be used in all official documents, books, newspapers, media and other areas by 2025. To prepare Kazakhs for the switch, a series of television, radio and Internet cultural pro-jects using video clips and video lectures will be broadcast on TV channels during the new season and uploaded on the Internet.

Capital to host 10th Astana MarathonBy Aidana Yergaliyeva

NUR-SULTAN – The Kazakh capital will host the 10th Astana Marathon charity race Sept. 8. People of all abilities can partici-pate individually and in pairs, fam-ilies and companies to compete in the 10-kilometre and 42.2-kilome-tre distances.

The popularity of Nur-Sultan as a marathon destination with flat race route grows annually. In 2019, marathon organisers expect approximately 8,000 participants from more than 30 countries.

“The event… brings people into

athletics and develops the city’s tourism,” said Secretary General of Athletics Federation of Kazakh-stan and Competition Commission Member of Asian Athletics Asso-ciation Askhat Seisembekov on his Twitter page.

The Astana Marathon works to promote Kazakhstan and Nur-Sul-tan globally.

The marathon supports char-ity organisations and raises funds for good causes, including its own One Steppe Beyond charity pro-ject. The project organises short-distance races throughout the year in rural areas of Kazakhstan.

The Astana Marathon also

pledges to help Kazakh citizens complete all six Marathon Majors and to get their names into the Hall of Fame.

The marathon also identifies Kazakh runners who meet require-ments of Kazakhstan’s Master of Sport or Candidate for Master of Sports.

Among the supporters of the race are World Class fitness club, The Wall Street Journal. World Class fitness club offers free train-ings for participants from the first Astana Marathon.

Astana Marathon founder and Race Director Gauhar Bramley-Fenton was inspired to organise the

Astana marathon after the October 2008 Royal Parks Half Marathon in London. She went there to sup-port the Air Astana mixed-ability runners group.

Bramley-Fenton teamed up with like-minded people Saule Ku-daibergenova, Janar Jailauova of Air Astana and Gani Toxanbaev who is the former Credit Suisse Kazakhstan Vice President, who wanted to bring the idea to reality.

The team organised Sept. 26, 2009 the first charity run in Nur-Sultan and collected 972,994.00 tenge (US$2,508.5) for SOS Chil-dren’s Villages and Astana Chil-dren’s Home.

For the next 10 years, Bram-ley-Fenton continued to organ-ise charity races in Nur-Sultan, adding Almaty in 2012 and London in 2013. The mara-thon raised 37,125,458.00 tenge (US$95,715.0) in total for Kazakh charities.

The Kazakh capital had its first 42.2-kilometre run Sept. 13, 2015.

The Astana Marathon joined the Association of International Mara-thons and Distance Races (AIMS) in 2018 and has filed an applica-tion for the Bronze Label in the In-ternational Association of Athlet-ics Federations (IAAF). The IAAF has certified the marathon’s route.

Sexual abuse punishment should be toughened, deputies and activists agree

By Diana Vassilenko

NUR-SULTAN – Sexual abuse must be qualified as a serious of-fence rather than a medium-grav-ity crime, Mazhilis (lower house of Parliament) deputy Nurzhan Altayev said at an Aug. 12 round-table in Almaty, where participants agreed measures to fight sexual violence must be tightened and the law’s definition of rape refined.

“The time has come to redefine this type of crime (sexual abuse) from moderate to serious. And, of course, our society must be consolidated and condemn this crime. The rapists should feel like outcasts, their relatives should be ashamed of them; therefore, I think their faces should be shown,” Al-tayev said.

He made reference to the na-tionally reported story of two train conductors who raped a passenger travelling from the capital to Ak-tobe in November 2018. The court

has sentenced each of them to 30 months in prison.

“We must take charge of this. The fact that the rapists in that resonating case, where violent acts were committed against our sister on a Talgo train, received only two and a-half years in prison, is abso-lutely unacceptable,” he added.

NeMolchiKz (Don’t be qui-et Kz), the national movement against sexual violence, has for years been highlighting the need to revise legislation concern-ing sexual abuse. According to NeMolchiKz, five women and two children are raped in the country each day. Deputies and ministers started supporting the movement following the gruesome train case, reported caravan.kz.

One of the sexual abuse victims hid her face at the roundtable as she spoke about the way such sen-sitive cases are handled. Accord-ing to the victim, investigators pre-tended to lose her testimony about the two rapists, the criminals and

their relatives stalked her near the entrance to her house and people on social media claimed she was to blame and had rigged the situa-tion. She was forced to stand with the rapists during the psychologi-cal examination and sit opposite them in court. When she tried to turn away from them, the judge rebuked her. No one supports the victim and everyone is trying to cover up such matters as soon as possible, she said.

Human rights lawyer and ac-tivist Khalida Azhigulova noted such an attitude towards victims of violence is the result of the na-tional educational system. All law students are required to study the commentaries in addition to the laws and codes.

“In a commentary on the Crimi-nal Code, ‘a woman’s lack of will for sexual intimacy may be evi-denced by her explicit and obvi-ously expressed resistance.’ In the whole civilised world, it is believed that a man should receive

explicit consent, but in Kazakhstan we require a woman to actively resist. ‘The violence must be so intense that it must overcome the real and not imaginary resistance of the victim’ and the author of the commentary further writes ‘There-fore, sexual intercourse cannot be recognised as rape, if the woman did not show real resistance,’” she read from the document, which must be studied by national law-yers.

The roundtable participants were astonished by the law’s inter-pretation of sexual abuse.

“The victim must prove that she was raped in our country, but ac-cording to international standards, it is the accused who struggle to prove themselves innocent, and psychologists support the victim from the very beginning,” Azhigu-lova added.

The participants agreed work must and will be done to change the commentaries and the law’s definition of sexual abuse. In ad-

dition, they agreed an important step should be made by transfer-ring sexual violence cases from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Office of the Prosecutor General. Practice shows many cases cannot move from a dead point until they are transferred from the district to the region or prosecutor’s office, said Azhigulova, as local investi-gators often fail to find either evi-dence or witnesses.

NeMolchi.kz activists have been successfully facilitating the pro-gress of many rape cases. They make sure to help sexual abuse victims and teach them how to ensure their cases are solved. Ka-zakh citizens may sign petitions to strengthen the law against sexual abuse using a link provided on the nemolchi.kz Instagram and Fa-cebook pages. With the rising ac-tivity of people and now the gov-ernment against sexual abuse, the trend is set in motion for the situa-tion to change.

President Kassym-Jomart To-kayev alluded to this in mid-Au-gust, noting that in his first state-of-the-nation address Sept. 2 he will outline instructions to the government and call on Parliament to toughen punishments for crimes against individuals to preserve their dignity.

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FM makes first trip to Berlin, promotes economic political ties

By Elya Altynsarina

BERLIN – Kazakh Foreign Minister Beibut Atamkulov dis-cussed ways to strengthen eco-nomic, political and humanitarian ties with German Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas during Atamkulov’s Aug. 19 first visit to Berlin in his capacity.

The Kazakh delegation headed by Atamkulov also met with high-level German officials, including Head of the Office of the Federal President Stefan Steinlein, Chairman of the

Germany-Central Asia Parliamen-tary Friendship Group, Bundestag Deputy Manfred Grund and Parlia-mentary State Secretary at the Fed-eral Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy Thomas Bareiß.

During these talks, Atamkulov noted Three Dialogues initiative of Kazakhstan’s First President, Nur-sultan Nazarbayev, which seeks to enhance partnership between ma-jor political powers through dia-logue and discussion.

The sides also noted that Vice President of the German Bundestag

Dr. Hans-Peter Friedrich is expected to visit the Kazakh capital Sept. 23-24 for the Fourth Meeting of Speak-ers of Eurasian Countries’ Parlia-ments and that German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Kazakhstan in 2017 to celebrate the 25th year of diplomatic relations.

One of the proposed next steps for bilateral cooperation is the signing of a roadmap for eco-nomic and industrial cooperation in energy, engineering, renewable energy, chemistry, tourism, trans-port and agriculture.

In 2018, trade turnover between the two countries reached $5.1 bil-lion. Approximately 85 percent of Germany’s trade volume with Central Asia is with Kazakhstan.

Over the past 12 years, Kazakh-stan has attracted $8.6 billion in investment from Germany. Ap-proximately 900 joint ventures and companies with German par-ticipation have been working in Kazakhstan where companies such as Siemens, WILO, Knauf, BASF, Metro Cash & Carry, OBI, Claas, Linde AG are present.

Kazakhstan and Germany also cooperate on multilateral plat-forms, including peace projects in Afghanistan. According to the Kazakh foreign ministry, German officials have also said they want to help implement the European Union’s new strategy for Central Asia.

The two countries also have humanitarian ties with more than 180,000 ethnic Germans living in Kazakhstan, while more than 900,000 German citizens have migrated to their historical moth-erland from Kazakhstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

There are number of initiatives to enhance this relationship. Since recently, Kazakh school pupils can learn German as a first foreign lan-guage again, a step Maas called a “wonderful sign”.

Singaporean investors hope to invest $200 million in constructing Nur-Sultan educational institutions

By Dilshat Zhussupova

NUR-SULTAN – Singaporean investors hope to invest $200 mil-lion in constructing a kindergarten, schools and higher education insti-tutions in the capital, reports the city akimat (administration).

Singaporean company Kinder-World International Group signed an investment project roadmap for constructing kindergartens, schools, colleges and universi-ties in Almaty, Nur-Sultan and Shymkent during the May 16-17

Kazakhstan Global Investment Roundtable. Earlier agreements were inked at the Nov. 21 Kazakh-stan-Singapore Investment Forum. The kindergartens, schools, col-leges and universities in the three cities will each offer up to 2,000 places for children or students, while up to 30 percent of teach-ers and professors will be locally staffed.

A kindergarten and primary school will be built in the capital as part of the first stage of project implementation, after which a sec-ondary school will be constructed.

A college and university will be built during the third stage.

“The head of state stated that attracting investment is a key pri-ority, especially in education. The capital is a particularly favourable place for attracting investment,” said Nur-Sultan Akim (Mayor) Altai Kulginov during an Aug. 14 meeting with KinderWorld Inter-national Group representatives.

Nur-Sultan Akimat will allocate a land plot of five hectares for the project. Kazakh Invest will provide project support by facilitating the investment contract, land acquisi-

tion and visa procedures, Kazakh In-vest Deputy Chairman of the Board Marat Birimzhan told Invest.gov.kz.

Another 11 projects in education in the capital will attract more than 27.6 billion tenge (US$71.45 million) in investment and create more than 10,000 school places, 1,000 places in kindergartens and 1,500 jobs.

For example, TAMOS Educa-tion will attract more than four bil-lion tenge (US$10.35 million) in investment to construct a private school with a physics and mathe-matics emphasis. SABIS will build an international school by 2023,

creating 1,000 school and 250 kin-dergarten places and 200 jobs. Its construction will cost $15.5 mil-lion. EURO AST KZ2019’s pro-jects will also create 500 school and 120 kindergarten places.

In the previous school year, Nur-Sultan had 108 schools with a shortage of places for children. Kulginov noted that, when choos-ing a construction site for a new educational institution, it will be important to account for popula-tion density and potential connec-tions to engineering networks and infrastructure.

Central Asian nations, U.S. discuss regional security, economic cooperation in Kazakh capital

By Nazira Kozhanova

NUR-SULTAN – Ministers of foreign affairs from the five Central Asian nations and a top U.S. diplomat met in Nur-Sultan Aug. 22 to discuss regional security and economic coop-eration with the United States.

The first session of the meet-ing, known as C5+1, discussed avenues for economic security and partnership. U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale moderated the session.

The second session focused on promoting peace in Afghanistan and was moderated by Uzbeki-stan’s Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov. The third session cen-tered around security in Central Asia and was moderated by Tajik-istan’s Foreign Minister Sirodjid-din Mukhriddin.

Kazakh Minister of Foreign Af-fairs Beibut Atamkulov told the gathering Kazakhstan remains committed to cooperatively ad-dressing the challenges facing Central Asia.

“Ensuring the sustainable de-velopment, stability and prosper-ity of this space (Central Asia) is our common achievable task. That is why Kazakhstan has always sought to establish effective re-

gional cooperation in the context of globalisation and the challenges and threats we face,” said Atamku-lov, reports KazInform.

The Kazakh Foreign Minister also noted the importance of the

United States’ participation in the meetings and praised the United States’ strategy on interaction with Central Asia.

“Regional security is unthink-able without bilateral diplomacy

and international partnership, therefore, the C5+1 format is an important tool for ensuring se-curity and sustainable economic development of our region. The American strategy for cooperation with Central Asia today, aimed at supporting intra-regional ties, transport corridors, implementing infrastructure projects and ensur-ing regional security, today fully complies with the interests of the countries of the region,” said Atamkulov, as reported by the Ka-zInform news agency.

The group also reaffirmed their support for ongoing C5+1 meet-ings and, according to the U.S. De-partment of State, the United States characterised the meetings as a valuable forum to address com-mon challenges and to strengthen the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the Central Asian states. The group also re-viewed plans for the next ministe-rial C5+1 meeting and proposed activities for the C5+1’s security, economic productivity and envi-ronmental working groups.

L-R: Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan Chingiz Aidarbekov, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Da-vid Hale, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Beibut Atamkulov, Tajikistan’s Foreign Minister Sirodjiddin Mukhrid-din, Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan Rashid Meredov and Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov.

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Karipbek Kyukov

Continued from Page A1

Kuyukov now travels the world sharing his art and message with government leaders and youth.

“This gives a lot not only to youth, but also to myself. New ideas and motivation for the future appear. I try to help young people choose future professions by talk-ing about ecology. I always say that ecology begins at the door-step of your home. As you relate to your porch, to your territory, the world will relate to you. As long as I have the strength and the ability to speak, I will do it,” said Kuyu-kov.

The ATOM Project launched in 2012 as an initiative of Kazakh-stan’s First President, Nursultan Nazarbayev to seek a permanent end to nuclear weapons testing and to help achieve a nuclear weapons free world.

“In December, I spoke from the main rostrum of the world, from the United Nations rostrum, and di-rectly addressed the heads of those states that still mistakenly think

that by having a nuclear weapon, they have a security shield,” said Kuyukov.

“There are waves of terrorist acts around the world. Can you imagine

what will happen if these weapons fall into the hands of terrorists? We must not only think about it, but also act on it legally. After all, they issued the law banning smoking in public places, because it harms health and people follow this law. So, why not to create a law against nuclear weapons?” he added.

Kuyukov participated in the creation of British documentary di-rector Andre Singer’s film “Where the Wind Blew.” The film is about the tragedy of thousands of people faced with the bitterness of loss and diseases caused by nuclear tests.

“This film shows the struggle of the first Kazakh anti-nuclear movement, Nevada-Semey, which was headed by our poet Oljas Suleimenov. (It is about) how we started, held the first rallies… That was the 1990s, difficult years. At that time, there was no Internet, no cell phones. Those people who

stood at the origins gave their lives in the fight against nuclear weap-ons. So many of them are already gone,” said Kuyukov.

The activist pointed out that the film also shows the struggle of the American people who joined the movement and this is what helped them to succeed.

“As you know, Nevada also has the second largest test site in the world in scale and in America there are caring people. These are ordinary people, who also fought, non-governmental organisations that walked with us, also spoke, held rallies and protests. I remem-ber we invited Americans to rallies at the gates of our Semipalatinsk test site. They invited us, and to-gether we organised a rally at the gates in Nevada… The bottom line is that if the nations unite and protest together, we can succeed,” said Kuyukov.

‘I might be naive, but we can win the struggle for a world without nuclear weapons,’ says activist

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The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norwe-gian School of Economics and BI Norwegian Business School recently released the Interna-tional Business report focusing on Kazakhstan. The project was launched in 1984 by the Innova-tion Norway, the Norwegian gov-ernment’s company for innova-tion and development. The report is published annually focusing on a particular emerging mar-ket. This year’s report noted the country’s efforts to improve the business climate showed positive outcomes. It also emphasised the need for greater integration in global and regional markets, us-ing the country’s strategic loca-tion and the transit potential. The report also identifies oil and gas, mining, agriculture and renew-able energy as priority areas and construction, IT and tourism as emerging industries. “Kazakh-stan and Central Asia remain un-discovered for most Norwegian companies. With this report, we hope the Norwegian business will get insight about the market and new opportunities in Ka-zakhstan,” said Innovation Nor-way Country Director for Russia Frode Moe.

A Kazakh delegation took part

in the first meeting of the Shang-hai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) National Coordinators Council Aug. 20-23 in Moscow. The council oversees the imple-mentation of the organisation’s high-level decisions. Kazakh-stan’s SCO National Coordinator and Foreign Ministry’s Ambassa-dor-at-Large Yerlan Alimbayev headed the Kazakh delegation. The participants discussed Rus-sia’s presidency at the SCO that it assumed June 14 and prepara-tions for the SCO prime minis-ters’ meeting Oct. 31 – Nov. 1 in Tashkent.

Saudi Arabia’s Livestock and Agriculture Investment Com-pany (SALIC) plans to visit Ka-zakhstan to examine investment opportunities in the country’s agricultural sector, said SALIC CEO Matthew Jansen during a meeting with Kazakh Ambassa-dor to Saudi Arabia Berik Aryn in Riyadh. Aryn briefed Jansen on the developments in Kazakh agriculture and the preferences provided to foreign investors. Founded by Saudi Arabia’s Pub-lic Investment Fund, SALIC has worked since 2012 investing in countries that “have a competi-tive advantage in contributing to the production of selected food products and their availability for export markets.”

Nur-Sultan will host the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Travel Mart Sept. 18-20. The event will gather nearly 1,000 industry leaders from more than 60 countries. The Kazakh capi-tal won the right to host one of Asia’s biggest international tour-ism events in November. The event provides an opportunity to expand business contacts and access tourism decision makers. Among the participants are Ma-laysia’s Ameriasa Tours, GetA-boutAsia that provides travel of-fers for independent tourists and Hays Travel, which is the largest independent travel agent in the United Kingdom. The programme will also feature the Travolution Forum Asia and Content Market-ing Forum scheduled for Sept. 18.

Kazakhstan’s Zhansaya Ab-dumalik claimed first place in Group A of the Vienna Chess Open Tournament Aug. 17-24. Nine hundred and seventy-two chess players from 57 coun-tries, including 20 Grandmasters (GMs) and more than 30 Interna-tional Masters (IMs), competed at the tournament, including 398 competing in Group A. Dur-ing the nine rounds, Abdumalik earned seven points, the best result among women and the eighth in the general ranking. Abdumalik, who is the world’s 23rd among female players, also received a prize from Nana Alex-andria, Georgian chess Woman Grandmaster and International Arbiter.

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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019

ECONOMYNEWS IN BRIEF

ECONOMY

L-R: Nur-Sultan City Business Chamber head Almat Dzhunussov, Nur-Sultan City Investment and Business Development division head Yerlan Bekmurzayev, Damu Business Development Fund Regional Director Nursultan Abdulla.

If implemented, the controls over the 10 food items would follow the first measures to maintain prices, which began Aug. 16 with amendments to the Internal Trade Rules, which ban a price increase of more than 15 percent for socially significant food products.

Economy of Simple Things programme to create 16,000 jobs by 2025

By Assel Satubaldina

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakhstan’s Economy of Simple Things pro-gramme will create 16,000 jobs by 2025. The programme, launched in March, received 600 billion tenge (US$1.55 billion) to develop domestic production of daily con-sumed goods and services.

Twenty billion tenge (US$516.3 million) will be devoted to ag-riculture and 400 billion tenge (US$1.03 billion) to support the processing industry and service sector.

“It is important to note that the funds were allocated for the entire country with no peg to the regions. The regional office will consider projects across the country,” said Damu Business Development Fund Regional Director Nursultan Abdulla at an Aug. 14 briefing.

Businesses can apply for lending through the country’s nine second-tier banks. Large, small and me-dium-sized businesses producing goods on the 365-item priority list are eligible for loans.

“Among them are food products, processed products in the agricul-tural sector, furniture, plastic prod-ucts and clothing. The programme also includes the reconstruction and construction of student dormi-tories, schools and preschool insti-tutions and creation of wholesale

distribution centres to store agri-cultural products,” he said.

The interest rate will be up to 15 percent for a maximum of seven years. The Damu Fund will subsi-dise nine percent.

The loans are given for invest-ment and working capital, said Abdulla. There is no limit to the amount businesses can request.

Businesses will also need to ei-ther retain or create more jobs or ensure 10-percent revenue growth after two years.

“The financing and subsidis-ing term for the loan taken for in-vestments purposes is up to seven years and for the working capital up to three years. At the same time, the ratio is 50-50,” he said.

The fund also provides guaran-tees that can help businesses en-sure sufficient collateral.

“Businesses can obtain up to a 50-percent guarantee on loans of three billion tenge (US$7.7 million) or less and 20 percent on loans of three (US$7.7 million) to five bil-lion tenge (US$12.9 million). All guarantees are free,” he said.

Four subsidy agreements for 1.5 billion tenge (US$3.8 mil-lion) were signed in the capital and four agreements for 275 million tenge (US$709,926) granted guar-antees worth 105 million tenge (US$271,062).

“Two projects worth 6.3 billion tenge (US$16.3 million) are un-

der consideration and 15 projects worth 3.5 billion tenge (US$9 mil-lion) receive support from the fund consultants,” said Abdulla.

The regional project office, which supports programme par-ticipants from developing a busi-ness plan to financing, operates in the capital, said Nur-Sultan City Business Chamber head Almat Dzhunussov. It includes represent-atives of the city’s investment and business development department, Damu Fund and second-tier banks.

Small and medium-sized enter-prises (SMEs) are the key driver of economic growth, said Nur-Sultan City Investment and Business De-velopment division head Yerlan Bekmurzayev.

SMEs represented 27.8 percent of Kazakh businesses in 2018 and the government is seeking to reach 30-35 percent by 2025. More than three million people, nearly 30 percent of the country’s working population, run SMEs.

“The share of SMEs in the capi-tal is 58.8 percent. This is the high-est share across the country and we are proud to pass the 50 percent threshold,” he said.

City officials are now working to determine the site for additional special economic zones (SEZs) in the capital to provide more space for businesses. The capital cur-rently has two – Astana-New City and Astana Technopolis.

PM visits Kostanai Region, examines region’s industrial development

By Diana Vassilenko

NUR-SULTAN – Prime Minis-ter Askar Mamin visited the Ko-stanai Region Aug. 14-15 where he was briefed on the progress of the region’s industrial and infra-structure development.

Mamin visited the Severnyi mi-crodistrict in Zarechnoye village, where, as part of the Nurly Zher Housing Programme, 279 houses are being built.

“Now, there are 279 houses with an area of 100 and 120 square me-tres in the microdistrict. There are both single-story and two-story types,” Deputy Akim (Governor) of the region Sergey Karplyuk told Mamin. “There is an additional 10 acres of land to each house. The houses cost 120,000 tenge (US$310.6) per one square metre. The down payment is 20 percent followed by a 19-year loan at five percent.”

The state allocated 2.2 billion tenge (US$5.7 million) for the construction. Another 2.7 billion (US$6.99 million) went to Sev-ernyi’s infrastructure develop-ment. Roads have been added and gas and water have been supplied to the houses. Work on 172 houses has been completed; the remain-ing 107 will be built by the end of the year. Karplyuk said the houses have already been distributed, as they are in great demand.

Mamin also visited an art exhibi-

tion by the Ankauov brothers. De-spite all four of them having mo-tor challenges due to a congenital disease, the artists create applique panel style artworks. What makes their artwork unique is that the brothers use felt instead of fabric. Their works have gained interna-tional recognition. As a token of his appreciation, Mamin handed apartment keys to two of the broth-ers, reports 24.kz

“We are very happy we received these apartments. I believe this will give us a big impetus for our professional development and cre-ativity. We have big plans for the

future,” said Baglan Ankauov, one of the brothers.

Mamin was also briefed on the development of the machine build-ing industry. In accordance with the strategic instructions of Ka-zakhstan’s First President, Nur-sultan Nazarbayev, and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s orders, the development of the machine building industry is one of the priorities in the work of the gov-ernment. In the new Industrial Zone of Kostanai city, the produc-tion of ‘Belarus’ and ‘Kirovets’ energy-efficient tractors has been launched. In total, 14 projects

worth 350 billion tenge (US$900 million) and creating 3,000 jobs are to be launched in the zone, re-ports primeminister.kz.

The automotive industry is one of the main factors that drive the industrial and technological devel-opment of the region’s economy. Mamin examined the SaryarkaAv-toProm production facilities, where the assembly, welding and colouring of light vehicles, car-rier trucks and buses is carried out. Their annual production capacity is 27,000 pieces. Fifty car models of eight brands are assembled at the factory.

The prime minister discussed the automotive industry and agricultur-al machine building with Minister of Industry and Infrastructure De-velopment Roman Sklyar, Minister of Agriculture Saparkhan Omarov, Akim (Governor) of the Kostanai Region Archimed Mukhambetov, Akim of the East Kazakhstan Re-gion Daniyal Akhmetov, as well as the heads of several enterprises, in-cluding President of Astana Group Nurlan Smagulov, Chairman of the Board of KAMAZ Sergey Kog-ogin, Director of China National Vehicles Import and Export Corpo-ration Wu I, Director of Peterburg-sky Traktorny Zavod Sergey Sere-byakov and CEO of Gomselmash Alexander Novikov.

Mamin said the 2019-2024 Ma-chine Building Industry Develop-ment Roadmap adopted in July includes systemic supports, such as tax cuts, financial and raw mate-rial support and qualified person-nel supply. The industry aims to produce 100,000 cars annually by 2020.

The prime minister also visited the Bayan Sulu confectionery fac-tory and examined agricultural crop conditions at Zarechnoye Farm.

Mamin also visited several key enterprises in Rudny, such as the Sokolov quarry of the Sokolov-Sarbai Mining Enterprise, the Rudny Cement Plant and the milk processing and dairy production enterprise Lider-2010 LLP.

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Ministry of National Economy suggests price controls for

essential food itemsBy Aidana Yergaliyeva

NUR-SULTAN – Minister of National Economy Ruslan Dalenov suggested during the Aug. 20 gov-ernment meeting that Kazakhstan should lower prices and increase control over ten food products to maintain the inflation rate. The items are onions, carrots, potatoes, beets, rice, flour, horsemeat, lamb, beef and bread.

Inflation has remained in the 4-6 percent range since the beginning of the year, said Dalenov. Annual infla-tion was 5.4 percent, compared to 5.9 percent in July 2018. The food products contributed 3.4 percent to inflation growth, or approximately 63 percent of price increases.

Nineteen socially significant prod-ucts, where prices increased 9 per-cent, represented half the food price rise. Since the beginning of the year, they have contributed 1.1 percent to the hike in food prices and a 40-per-cent increase in inflation. In all re-gions, product prices are ahead of inflation, with the increase ranging from 7.2 percent to 15.1 percent, said Dalenov.

The largest increases are seen in the capital (15.1 percent), Zhezka-zgan (11.8 percent) and Taldykorgan (10.4 percent). Prices in the capital for carrots (2.4 times), onions (85.5 percent), potatoes (82.4 percent),

rice (21.6 percent) and flour (20.8 percent) rose significantly.

In the country as a whole, prices rose for onions (79 percent), carrots (59.3 percent), potatoes (32.9 per-cent) and rice (23.8 percent).

According to the ministry’s analy-sis, “the price for the final consumer is significantly higher than the price of the producer or import,” noted Danelov.

If implemented, the controls over the 10 food items would follow the first measures to maintain prices, which began Aug. 16 with amend-ments to the Internal Trade Rules, which ban a price increase of more than 15 percent for socially signifi-cant food products. The changes also require domestic items to occupy at least 30 percent of shelf space in shopping centres.

In addition, the amendments pro-hibit rewards (retrobonuses) levied on suppliers by retail chains.

The following day, the govern-ment began enforcing the Model Rules for the Implementation of Sta-bilisation Mechanisms for the Prices of Socially Important Food Products. According to the rules, akimats (city and regional administrations) and socio-entrepreneurial corporations can provide working capital to retail chains in exchange for maintaining product prices.

“There are all the necessary tools to curb rising prices. These are rules of trade, stabilisation funds and retail chain lending, wholesale distribution centres, monitoring and verification of intermediary operations,” said Dalenov.

Increased prices are also the result of “the mutual influence of coun-tries on pricing in the framework of the single market of the Eurasian Economic Union,” said Minister of Trade and Integration Bakhyt Sul-tanov.

“There is a clear positive correla-tion between the prices of Russia and Kazakhstan. As the analysis shows, the correlation is more than 90 per-cent for this group of goods. Amid rising prices in Russia, both our pric-es and export volumes are rising,” he added.

Prime Minister Askar Mamin di-rected Sultanov to develop a unified online platform to monitor prices of socially significant goods.

Kazakhstan’s employed popu-lation increased 1.5 percent to 8.8 million by the end of July. Of this figure, 66.7 percent of those aged 15 and over are em-ployed. Hired workers compose the majority of 76.1 percent or 6.7 million; self-employed, 23.9 percent or 2.1 million. The education sector leads the top three fields with 16.1 percent or 1.1 million, followed by in-dustrial workers (15.7 percent or one million) and wholesale and retail trade, car and mo-torcycle repair (10.9 percent or 724,900). According to the Ministry of National Economy’s Statistics Committee, school-teachers (352,200) head the top 10 most common professions; next in the list are accountants (268,200).

Investments in education de-

creased 10.2 percent year-on-year (yoy) from January-July, totalling 92.8 billion tenge (US$240.67 million) with 87.7 percent volume index. The re-ductions started during same period in 2018, decreasing 16.4 percent to 103.3 billion tenge (US$267.9 million). The share of educational investments de-creased from 1.9 percent to 1.5 percent in total fixed asset in-vestments. The Turkestan Re-gion, Nur-Sultan and Almaty consolidated 51 percent of all investments. The region had the biggest bulk of investment and yoy increase of 19.5 bil-lion tenge (US$50.57 million), a 74.5-percent increase. In-vestments in the biggest cities, however, have decreased – in Nur-Sultan by 7.5 percent (to 17.7 billion tenge or US$45.90 million) and Almaty by 26.4 percent (to 10.1 billion tenge or US$26.19 million).

Loans from domestic financ-ing companies decreased 30 percent during the last five years. At the same time, the eq-uity share of domestic financing enterprises has increased from 58 percent to 73 percent. The reason was a sharp decrease in borrowed funds in 2017, caused by a 77.4-percent decrease in foreign financing. The Kazakh investment policy has showed a gradual improvement in foreign loans in the first half of 2019. Loans from non-residents, in particular, reached 101.8 bil-lion tenge (US$264.01 million), which is 37.6 percent of total loans (32.8 percent in 2018).

External investments reached 1.9 trillion tenge (US$4.93 mil-lion) in the first half of 2019, an increase of 39 percent year-on-year (yoy), reported FinReview. By 2025, the Kazakh government plans to increase annual foreign direct investment from the cur-rent $24 billion to $34 billion. Prime Minister Askar Mamin, speaking at an expanded govern-ment meeting, set the task to in-crease annual investment volume in fixed assets by an average of 20 percent. To achieve this, Kazakh-stan must attract 30 trillion tenge (US$77.80 billion) in invest-ments within five years. To date, 12.4 trillion tenge (US$32.16 billion) in government projects need to attract a yearly average of three trillion tenge (US$7.78 billion) of investments.

According to the Kazakh Ministry of Trade and Integra-tion, approximately 40 percent of trade is in the shadows, or not subject to taxation. One of the mechanisms to remedy the situation is modernising trade infrastructure, including trade markets. The ministry plans to gradually switch all non-sta-tionary markets to modern trad-ing formats. Work is underway to construct wholesale distri-bution centres. In addition, the department is working to de-velop the e-commerce sector. From January-June, the volume of non-cash payments increased more than two times per year to 4.8 trillion tenge (US$12.45 billion). For the same period in 2018, non-cash payments were 2.2 trillion tenge (US$5.71 bil-lion).

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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019

BUSINESSNEWS IN BRIEF

BUSINESS

The businesswomen are taught how to draw up business plans, find customers as well as develop advertising skills and online business promotion skills.

AIFC Bureau to launch internal auditor course

By Zhanna Shayakhmetova

NUR-SULTAN – The Astana International Financial Centre’s (AIFC) Bureau for Continuing Pro-fessional Development, in coopera-tion with the Ministry of Finance, will launch an internal auditor pro-gramme this autumn.

Interested individuals can study at the AIFC Bureau and become an international qualified internal audi-tor with Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) certification.

“The bureau has ten programmes in the areas of finance, investment, accounting and auditing. The main task of the new programme is to re-train and train internal and external auditors. The main challenge for us is to teach the professional experts. They need to move away from their previous background and be ready for new knowledge,” AIFC Admin-istration Deputy Board Chairperson Yernur Rysmagambetov said Aug. 13 at the first AIFC National Con-ference of Internal Auditors.

The initial phase will involve teaching the teachers.

“The first step is to train local teachers, because we have a short-age of professionals. Next, we will launch a pilot project with a small group together with the Ministry of Finance to see how the whole pro-cess takes place until the end of the year. As soon as we finish the test depending on the resources, time and desire of the auditors them-selves, we will begin the training,” he said.

The AIFC Bureau is considering providing free training as well as payment options.

“The participants in our pro-

grammes usually pay for the en-tire course and in case of success in examinations, we reimburse the expenses for the certification pro-gramme. We will probably apply this approach to this programme as well. We aim to train the employ-ees of the Ministry of Finance. The international programme in English will be available to all internal audi-tors working in the quasi-public sec-tor and private business. We will not only train state auditors,” he added.

The AIFC Bureau and the Kazakh Institute of Internal Auditors signed a memorandum as part of the con-ference.

“The AIFC Bureau cooperates with international qualification companies in various areas. We have already started the training. Now, every six months we add new programmes to our portfolio. The Ministry of Finance proposed adding the CIA certificate, because the ministry sees the need to train internal auditors. After the market analysis, we decided to add a CIA programme. We see the great im-portance of internal auditors for all projects. Our mission is to introduce international knowledge in the local market,” said Rysmagambetov.

The AIFC Bureau is responsible for human capital development and plans to retrain more than 5,000 specialists in the country’s finan-cial industry, ultimately creating a critical mass of professionals for the AIFC eco-system and beyond. The bureau is responsible for investment and financial literacy programmes related to the AIFC’s core pillars including Islamic finance, fintech, capital markets, green finance and asset and wealth management.

Kazakhstan to expand AIFC legal jurisdiction, approve tax residency for foreign investors

By Nazira Kozhanova

NUR-SULTAN – The Kazakh government approved Aug. 20 an expansion of the Astana In-ternational Financial Centre’s (AIFC) legal jurisdiction and an investment tax residency pro-gramme to attract foreign in-vestment.

The expansion of the AIFC’s legal jurisdiction will allow the centre to adopt acts regulating labour relations and procurement procedures.

“As a part of the 100 Concrete Steps Plan of the Nation, a special Constitutional Law on the AIFC was adopted in 2015, defining the goals, objectives and princi-ples of activity of the AIFC. The amendments to the Constitutional Law presented today will allow for the rapid establishment and development of the AIFC as the country’s main financial platform

and the use of its jurisdiction to attract and protect investments,” said Kazakh Prime Minister Askar Mamin during the Aug. 20 government meeting where the amendment was approved. It will now go to the Parliament for con-sideration.

The tax residency programme offers multi-entry visas to foreign investors and their families when they invest in Kazakhstan.

“I want to note that the launch of the investment residency pro-gramme in Kazakhstan should bring significant investment in the long term,” First Vice Minis-ter of Finance Berik Sholpanku-lov said.

The AIFC, created on the ini-tiative of Kazakhstan’s First President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is considered a key part of the country’s efforts to accelerate economic development. The cen-tre provides an array of services to assist foreign investors.

Atameken offers free training to women across nation

By Diana Vassilenko

NUR-SULTAN – The Atame-ken National Chamber of Entre-preneurs is providing free train-ing courses for businesswomen with the support of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 15 regions of the country.

“Now ADB, together with Atameken, is investing in work-shops that take place in all re-gions of Kazakhstan from June to October. We believe it is neces-sary to develop not only big cities like Nur-Sultan, Almaty but also the countryside. In the near fu-ture, it is planned to start issuing $10 million loans to Forte Bank through the Damu Fund,” said Rafael Akuino, an analyst on op-erational issues at ADB, about the role of ADB in supporting wom-en entrepreneurs in Kazakhstan, as reported by fundwomen.kz.

The first seminar on the De-velopment of Women’s Entrepre-neurship in Rural Regions was held May 23-24 in the Kokterek village, the Turkestan Region.

The course programme includes presentations of credit programmes (criteria, conditions and require-

ments for lending and other topics) of second-tier banks and microfi-nance organisations that partici-pate in the ADB and Damu pro-grammes. The emphasis is placed on the creation and maintenance of financial statements, understand-ing of legal issues when starting a business, the correct formation and submission of documentation for obtaining affordable loans.

The businesswomen are also taught how to draw up business plans, find customers as well as develop advertising skills and online business promotion skills.

Women entrepreneurs and reg-istered individuals in rural areas, as well as individuals (self-em-

ployed) who have been trained under the Bastau Business pro-ject and failed to receive funding for various reasons, can all take part in the course.

“At the seminar we teach how to develop oneself, how to choose a field for development, how to expand and supplement it. We explain what marketing, financial, legislative tools can be mastered in the course of run-ning one’s business. One aspect of the training is the participa-tion of representatives of finan-cial institutions, through which women learn about the pos-sibility of additional funding. Our task is to help them man-age their finances and determine what skills they should have and develop for their management,” said Bakhytgul Elchibaeva, a business coach and Executive Director of the Local Commu-nities Fund of the Enbekshika-zakh District, who gave one of the workshops in the Almaty Region June 27-28.

The workshops have now been held in six regions, including Ak-mola, Almaty, East Kazakhstan, Mangystau, North Kazakhstan and Turkestan regions.

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Seventy-five percent of the construction of KazMunayGas’ (KMG) Saryarka gas pipeline was completed as of Aug. 16, which is 796.6 kilometres of the pipeline, reports the KMG press service. The latest welding technology is used in the pipeline’s construc-tion by more than 2,000 construc-tion workers, making it possible to lay a six-kilometre pipe with an 820-millimetre diameter a day. Construction will be completed by the year’s end, after which the akimats (regional and city admin-istrations) will provide a gas sup-ply to Kazakhstan’s regions and cities. The pipeline is to improve the country’s energy security.

Kazakh airline Air Astana will transfer its Moscow flights from Nur-Sultan and Almaty to Domod-edovo Airport starting Oct. 24, reports the airline’s press service. The flight transfers are the result of a code-sharing agreement with Russia’s S7 Airlines and will be carried out without schedule in-terruptions. Air Astana launched Moscow flights from Nur-Sultan and Almaty in September 2002 and has transported more than 3.5 mil-lion passengers and 26,000 tonnes of cargo on these flights since then. There are 11 and 14 weekly Air Astana flights from Nur-Sultan and Almaty to Moscow during the winter, respectively, and 12 and 16 weekly flights from Nur-Sultan and Almaty to Moscow during the summer, respectively.

Samruk Kazyna Sovereign Wealth Fund’s net income in-creased 78 percent in January-March compared to the same period last year, reports its press service. The January-March net income per stockholder’s equity was 291 billion tenge (US$753.36 million). The factors contribut-ing to net income growth were an “increase in the volume and sales price of crude oil and gas exports and revenue growth from telecom-munications services, refined gold and joint ventures.”

KMG released Aug. 22 its finan-cial results for the first half of the year. In this time period, revenue increased 1.4 percent year-on-year to 3.4 billion tenge (US$8.8 mil-lion), which is attributed to an increase in gas export sales vol-ume and the tenge’s depreciation against the U.S. dollar. Gas exports to China increased 46.7 percent year-on-year to 340 billion tenge (US$880.21 million). Operat-ing profit increased 38.2 percent year-on-year to 399 billion tenge (US$1.93 billion), and net profit in-creased 73 percent year-on-year to 622 billion tenge (US$1.61 billion). Gross debt decreased 3.8 percent year-on-year to four billion tenge (US$10.36 million). Capital expen-ditures decreased 5.8 percent to 167 billion tenge (US$432.34 million), given the recent completion of the modernisation programme for Ka-zakhstan’s refineries.

One hundred and twenty em-ployers presented more than 2,000 vacancies at an Aug. 15 citywide job fair in the capital, reports the city akimat. The event was organ-ised by the akimat and its employ-ment centre and was attended by more than 1,000 job seekers. More than 4,527 people found employ-ment through the capital’s em-ployment centre since January, of which 1,722 were permanent jobs.

The Turkestan Region leads in implementing Kazakhstan’s Econ-omy of Simple Things programme with 206 projects worth 64.2 bil-lion tenge (US$166.15 million) in operation, reports its akimat. An-other 18 projects worth 927 million tenge (US$2.4 million) were sub-mitted for consideration to the aki-mat’s project office. The Economy of Simple Things programme was launched in March and received 600 billion tenge (US$1.55 billion) for the development of the domes-tic production of goods and servic-es that are consumed daily. Twenty billion tenge (US$51.76 million) will be allocated to agriculture and 400 billion tenge (US$1.04 billion) for supporting the processing in-dustry and service sector. The pro-gramme will create 16,000 jobs in Kazakhstan by 2025.

A6

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019

EDITORIAL&OPINION

THE ASTANA TIMES

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Kairat Kelimbetov

As we look around the world, it can seem sadly that the hard-won lessons of the past are at risk of being forgotten.

Kazakhstan should take bold steps to grow e-commerce, catch up with global sector leaders

By Azamat Askaruly

According to estimates, the global e-commerce market will grow from $2.8 trillion in 2018 to $4.9 trillion in 2023.

China is an indisputable leader with $672 billion in sales year-ly, in big part due to the Alibaba group. The share of e-commerce in the national retail turnover is 24 percent. Just the fact that Alibaba shares are seen as a proxy for the Chinese economy underscores the importance of e-commerce for a modern economy.

In Kazakhstan, e-commerce adds up to only 2.9 percent of na-tional retail.

Nevertheless, the number of ac-tive buyers has nearly doubled in recent years to 2.3 million people from 1.3 million people.

The market has more than 1,700 independent online stores and about 20 electronic trading plat-forms that enable more than one million business entities to sell their goods.

The structure of the e-commerce market in Kazakhstan consists of 68 percent of goods and 32 percent services trade.

Distrust of online shopping by the population, high finan-

cial and time costs for transport and logistics services and lack of skills to introduce a business in electronic commerce impede the development of electronic com-merce.

Systemic and consistent trade policy to develop trade infrastruc-ture and services, as well as to protect and advance Kazakhstan’s interest in the Eurasian Economic Union and the WTO are needed.

The Ministry of Trade and Inte-gration was established June 17. For the first time trade is at the cornerstone of the Government’s agenda.

We see significant opportunities to grow the e-commerce market.

To promote e-commerce our ministry has developed a roadmap for 2019-2025 consisting of 31 ac-tion items in 3 main areas.

The first area is promoting the growth of exports via e-commerce channels by reimbursing the costs of domestic small- and medium-sized businesses selling processed goods via international platforms like Taobao, E-bay, AliExpress and Amazon.

The second main focus is to in-volve domestic entrepreneurs in electronic commerce and infra-structure development by stimu-lating the creation of an elec-tronic trading platform for small businesses in the B2C format and to establish a phased transi-tion from state regulation to self-regulation based on voluntary membership. We also plan the introduction of training modules to create a culture of electronic

commerce with novice entrepre-neurs.

The final primary focus will be on strengthening consumer protec-tion and promoting e-commerce by introducing an online platform on which consumers can file com-plaints about unscrupulous online stores and electronic trading plat-forms;

Successful implementation of the roadmap items will increase the share of e-commerce in retail, boost the country’s investment at-tractiveness, help SME’s export products and increase tax rev-enues to the budget.

This is just the beginning. Some bold steps should also be taken to catch up with the leaders.

First, we propose revising the financial mechanism to support electronic commerce.

Russia and China are allocating more and more funds via special funds to support the growth of the sector.

Second, we need to enhance the business environment and achieve higher standards for digital trade.

Countries in the world are de-signing and implementing single window platforms to simplify the procedures for businesses.

Third, we need vast and rapid digitisation of the goods we pro-duce.

The digital services content of goods is increasing very rapidly. Take, for example, cars, which have bytes of data and lines of code more than any other consum-er good.

Fourth, we need to carefully examine digital trade barriers. We live in the world of data lo-calisation. But restricting data flows can be an enormous im-pediment.

Kazakhstan should move in line with global trends and take bold steps forward. The digital trade agenda should not be static.

The author is Vice Minister

of Trade and Integration of Ka-zakhstan.

Kazakhstan renews call to end nuclear weapons

testing on 70th anniversary of first Soviet test

Seventy years ago this week, the first nuclear explosion took place at the now shut down Semi-

palatinsk Nuclear Test Site. A momentous event, its shock waves were felt far beyond Central Asia for decades to come. The success-ful test of the first Soviet bomb marked the formal launch of the nuclear arms race and the escala-tion of the Cold War to a danger-ous new level.

Over the next 40 years, Semi-palatinsk remained at the heart of East-West tensions. The first test – known to the Soviets as First Lightning and to the Americans as Joe-1 – was followed by approxi-mately 450 more tests. Nearly a quarter of all nuclear explosions were triggered under and above the ground of this huge site in eastern Kazakhstan.

Seven decades later, the role played by that initial test and those that followed in increasing tensions may be largely a matter for Cold War historians. But for Kazakhstan, the legacy in both physical and policy terms remains very real.

Our country is still struggling with the environmental and health fall-out of these explosions. Our determination, too, to prevent any other country suffering this fate has seen us champion dialogue and co-operation in the inter-national community and lead the global fight against nuclear weapons.

For there is nothing at all abstract in Kazakhstan about the effects of nuclear weapons. As we have said before, nobody else in peacetime has suffered more and for longer from their effects. Thirty years since the last test took place in 1989, large areas of eastern Ka-zakhstan remain contaminated by radiation. There has been a huge human cost as well for those who lived in and around the site.

The tests, in the early years at least, took place without even the most rudimentary precau-tions. Far from being told to stay indoors, the local population went outside to watch the explosions. The result is a very high inci-dence of health problems, such as birth defects and cancers which sadly continue to be passed down through generations.

It is why our young country, from its earliest days, has warned about these dangers and, impor-tantly, campaigned for a nuclear weapons-free world. In a symbol-ic move, the closure of Semipal-atinsk was announced in 1991 on the anniversary of the first test. It was a bold move by a country – and its leader Nursultan Naz-arbayev – still months away from becoming a fully independent nation.This courage is recognised by the United Nations, officially making Aug. 29 the International Day Against Nuclear Testing.

This decisive break with the past was made even stronger when Kazakhstan voluntarily gave up the 1,400 nuclear warheads it inherited on the break-up of the Soviet Union. In a sign of Ka-zakhstan’s international co-oper-ation and partnership approach, which underpins its foreign af-fairs, Kazakhstan worked closely with both Russia and the United States to transfer the warheads securely to Russia for decommis-sioning, to prevent nuclear mate-

rial falling into the wrong hands and to make the Semipalatinsk site safe.

In the years that have followed, these steps have been followed by a series of measures to permanent-ly end nuclear testing and create a world in which these weapons are unnecessary. Kazakhstan has been one of the most tireless support-ers of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

At Kazakhstan’s suggestion and with Kazakhstan’s full sup-port, too, the nuclear weapons free zone in Central Asia was agreed by the five countries of the region and nuclear powers. More recently, the hosting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Low Enriched Ura-nium Bank will help, in time, discourage the proliferation of nuclear materials and weapons.

By matching rhetoric with ac-tion, such steps have given power-ful weight to Kazakhstan’s voice within the international commu-nity. Our international audience knows, too, that our campaigns rest on our own tragic experi-ences and our warnings should be heeded.

Today, this is more important than ever. As we look around the world, it can seem sadly that the hard-won lessons of the past are at risk of being forgotten. The idea that we achieve more inter-nationally by working together towards common goals appears to have gone out of fashion. Narrow and often short-term self-interest now seems in the ascendancy.

Nowhere is this more danger-ous than in the sphere of nuclear weapons. We must hope the 70th anniversary of that first fateful ex-plosion at Semipalatinsk reminds all countries of the need to stop nuclear tests and to work to rid the world of these threats to our survival.

Recent AIFC advances will make AIFC country’s main financial platform

By Doszhan Nurgaliyev

Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin, during a govern-ment session on Aug. 20 discussed the work of the Astana Interna-tional Financial Centre (AIFC). An opinion by columnist Doszhan Nurgaliyev was published in the Aug. 26 issue of Kazakhstanskaya Pravda. That opinion is reprinted below edited for space and style.

Delivering a report, Governor of the Astana International Fi-nancial Centre Kairat Kelimbetov said the AIFC had formed its own legislation, had adopted about 70 rules of general application and financial regulation, had prepared the necessary infrastructure and all structural units and organisa-tions were fully functioning. The total number of registered enter-prises of the AIFC regulator has increased to 235 companies from 26 countries (United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, China, Hong Kong and others), including large financial institu-tions such as the China Develop-ment Bank, China Construction Bank, and the largest investment banks, such as Wood & Co from the Czech Republic and and CICC based in Hong Kong. By the end

of 2020, the total number will grow to 500 organisations.

In November 2018, the Astana International Exchange (AIX) was launched. Global leaders in the financial industry, such as the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Nas-daq, Silk Road Fund and the larg-est U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs, became strategic partners and shareholders of the exchange, providing access to investment li-quidity in these vast regions.

“In less than one year of AIX op-erations, the amount of equity cap-ital raised accounted for over $70 million. According to the results of the first half of 2019, the total capi-talisation of the AIX amounted to $ 1.9 billion,” Kelimbetov said.

The AIFC, together with the Eu-ropean Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), will

continue the project to advance the capital market and upgrade its sta-tus in the global MSCI index to the level of developing economies. To facilitate the transition of Kazakh-stan to a green economy and sus-tainable development, the AIFC, in cooperation with the EBRD, adopted the Concept of a Green Financial System for Kazakhstan, the AIFC Strategy for its imple-mentation and set the rules for is-suing green bonds in the AIX.

As part of digitisation, the eJustice online dispute resolution system, unique for the region, was launched at the beginning of this year, allow-ing parties to a dispute to file an ac-tion with the AIFC Court electroni-cally from any part of the world.

“In general, all this allowed our centre to take 51st place in the Global Financial Centres Index and first place among similar cen-tres in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, ahead of Istanbul, Warsaw, Budapest, Moscow and Baku,” the AIFC Governor noted.

Meanwhile, in order to further develop the country’s financial platform, especially the AIFC legal jurisdiction, the Government ap-proved a draft amendment to the Constitutional Law on the Astana International Financial Centre. Ac-cording to Kelimbetov, the main

objective of the investment tax resi-dence programme is to attract for-eign private capital to the country in exchange for the investors and their families receiving a multiple-entry visa to Kazakhstan. In addition, the bill provides for the AIFC authorities to adopt acts regulating labour rela-tions and procurement procedures. The new legislative initiatives help to create an attractive investment cli-mate and build investor confidence.

In his turn, the First Vice Min-ister of Finance Berik Sholpanku-lov noted that nowadays the mar-ket for investment residency is globally experiencing a period of significant growth. In the frame-work of their own programmess, financial markets attract from $500 million to $1 billion invest-ments in total.

Nowadays, there are more than 80 similar programmes that of-fer two types of residence pro-grammes. The first type is im-plemented in countries, such as the United States, Canada, Spain, Latvia and Greece, providing residence permits in exchange for investment. The second type sug-gests acquiring an investment visa and tax residence of the country, similar to the investment tax resi-dence programme, and is imple-mented in Italy, Switzerland, Cy-

prus, and the United Kingdom. In Kazakhstan, it is proposed to apply the second type of the programme, which is the investment tax resi-dence programme.

“Thus, the bill provides for the concept of ‘investment resident’ and the programme of “investment tax residence,” said Sholpankulov.

Potential investors will invest their funds in financial instruments and securities traded on the AIFC exchange. At the same time, it is proposed to exempt investment tax

residents from paying individual income tax on income received from sources located outside of Kazakhstan. Income generated within our country will be taxed in accordance with the tax code.

“This measure is targeting inves-tors seeking to optimise their tax expenses, thereby increasing the investment appeal of the country,” said Sholpankulov.

The second set of amendments includes clarifying standards relat-ed to the activities of the AIFC. For example, the bodies of the Astana International Financial Centre will be entitled to adopt acts regulating labour relations and procurement procedures.

In general, as stressed by Shol-pankulov, the launch of the in-vestment residence programme in Kazakhstan is aimed at significant investments in the long run.

Summing up consideration of the matter, Mamin noted that the current amendments to the con-stitutional law will ensure the rapid establishment and devel-opment of the AIFC as the coun-try’s main financial platform and the use of its jurisdiction to at-tract and protect investments. At the same time, he instructed to continue improving the activities of the financial centre.

We see significant opportunities to grow the e-commerce market. To promote e-commerce our ministry has developed a roadmap for 2019-2025 consisting of 31 action items in 3 main areas.

“AIFC had formed its own legislation, had adopted about 70 rules of general application and financial regulation, had prepared the necessary infrastructure and all structural units and organisations were fully functioning.”

A7

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019

BUSINESS

Aktobe Region exports more than 20 tonnes beef to China,

for first timeBy Aidana Yergaliyeva

NUR-SULTAN – The Aktobe Meat Cluster and AkTep meat pro-cessing complex shipped Aug. 13 their first batch of more than 20 tonnes of vacuum-packed frozen boneless beef worth 2.13 billion tenge (US$5.5 million) to China, reports the press service of the Ka-zakh Ministry of Agriculture.

Aktobe Meat Cluster has an agreement on meat supply with Alashankou Fuchsin Trade, CITIC and Shenzhen Wei Jia Interna-tional Trade. The company hopes to increase exports to 4,000 tonnes by the end of 2019.

Aktobe Meat Cluster is an export-oriented meat processing plant specialising in high-quality beef. The enterprise is the final fa-cility in the production cycle of the meat cluster and provides services

in the meat processing industry, having an exclusive supply agree-ment with AkTep, which has its own feeding base.

The Agrarian Credit Corpora-tion (ACC) financed the breeding farm-reproducer and purchase of the meat breeds cattle with a loan of 9.3 billion tenge (US$24.01 million). ACC also funded the pur-chase of livestock to fill the feed-lots.

Rural cooperatives with experi-ence in cattle maintenance will be able to get the AkTep acquired cat-tle for leasing. On average, one co-operative consisting of five small farms should get approximately 1,000 cattle.

This will create pedigree farms in the region that will supply high-quality beef cattle to the feedlot and meat processing plant year-round without capital investments from AkTep.

AkTep has been ACC’s cli-ent for three years. During this period, the credit corporation fi-nanced the purchase of more than 13,000 breeding stock. This year alone, the company purchased more than 5,000 heads of pedi-gree cattle from Australia, the United States and Russia. The project is expected to increase the breeding stock of beef cattle in the Aktobe and West Kazakhstan regions.

ACC implements the state policy on the affordable lend-ing system formation that should stimulate the development of com-petitive entrepreneurship in the countryside. The corporation is a

part of KazAgro Holding. It has 16 branches across Kazakhstan and one representative office. The loan portfolio of the corporation is 372 billion tenge (US$960.34 mil-lion).

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International investors explore opportunities in Kazakhstan at Caspian Economic Forum

By Dilshat Zhussupova

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakh Invest officials presented investment op-portunities in Kazakhstan to for-eign companies Aug. 11-12 at the first Caspian Economic Forum held in Turkmenistan, reports In-vest.gov.kz.

Kazakh Invest met with Turkish company Çalık Holding to discuss cooperation in the textile industry. Çalık Holding’s subsidiary, Gap Pazarlama, is one of the largest companies in the textile industry and has production facilities in Af-rica and Central Asia.

“We have four plants in Turk-menistan. Now, we are consider-ing the possibility of investing in Kazakhstan but, for this, we need a reliable local partner,” said Gap Pazarlama Deputy General Man-ager Onur Yüksel on cooperating with Kazakh Invest, which sup-ports investment projects in Ka-zakhstan.

Russian company Lighting

Technologies intends to build a production plant for lighting and light control systems in the Al-maty Region and export the plant’s products to other Central Asian countries. In addition, Russian company Schelkovo Agrohim, Russia’s largest producer of pes-ticides, is interested in increasing its production capacity of plant protection agents in the Akmola Region.

Russia’s Korib Group of com-panies, which implements projects in the automotive industry, is in-terested in launching production in Kazakhstan. Russian company Elabuga Battery Factory, which produces automotive batteries, is also considering investing in pro-jects in the country.

“Kazakhstan is a promising market for us. We are ready to co-operate with Kazakh Invest and consider investment opportunities in our field,” said Korib Group of Companies Chief Executive Of-ficer Oleg Korobchenko.

The Caspian Economic Forum

gathered representatives of Azer-baijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan for the first time in a five-sided format since they signed a convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea Aug. 12, 2018 in Kazakhstan. Kazakh Prime Minister Askar Mamin and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov also met as part of the forum to discuss coop-eration in engineering, industrial chemicals, metallurgy, agriculture, tourism, transport and gas, report-ed Primeminister.kz.

Trade between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan was $68 mil-lion in the first half of the year, which is 2.2 times more than in the same period last year. Devel-oping initiatives, such as the new Coordinating Council, chaired by Mamin and aimed at attract-ing and protecting foreign in-vestment, will be an additional instrument for Kazakhstan to sustain the investor confidence demonstrated at the first Caspian Economic Forum.

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Kazakhstan digitises public procurement to increase

transparency and competitionBy Dilshat Zhussupova

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakhstan’s public procurement system is be-ing digitised to increase transpar-ency, promote fair competition, reduce corruption and improve the quality of goods and services in public procurement, said Vice Minister of Finance Ruslan Beket-ayev at an Aug. 14 government press conference.

The government’s public pro-curement website will launch new services, such as a new function for automatically calculating suppliers’ work experience. The introduction of new public procurement meth-ods, for example, will save suppli-ers time and administrative costs.

“To speed up the public procure-ment process, there is a plan to in-troduce a new method – a tender that draws on framework agree-ments that will allow procurement to be carried out in up to three to five days, on average, instead of 45 days,” said Beketayev.

“In the new amendments to the law On Public Procurement, there is a proposal to introduce a new competitive method of public pro-curement through an online store, through which it will be possible to quickly and conveniently pur-chase small goods,” he added.

Bank guarantees were recently automated to simplify the public

procurement application process, with 70,000 electronic bank guar-antees issued this year.

The online monitoring of 1.7 mil-lion public procurement procedures meant that only two percent of pro-cedures had violations this year. The government’s website also al-lows people to file electronic com-plaints about public procurement violations, for example, and track their status and outcome online. Seventeen thousand complaints were submitted in January-July.

These measures will reduce the costs associated with the public procurement process. Given that more than one million contracts are concluded annually, an esti-mated 10 billion tenge (US$25.82 million) may be saved.

In addition, five grounds for

concluding public procurement contracts from a single source and the option of concluding a contract on failed purchases from a single source were ruled out since Jan. 1 “to promote fair competition.”

“Our main task is to reduce the share of purchases from a single source,” said Beketayev on regu-lations implemented this year. “As a result (of the new regula-tions), there was a sharp decrease in the share of public procure-ment of failed purchases from a single source from 51.3 percent in 2018 to 7 percent in January-July, which saved 283 billion tenge (US$730.58 million) in public pro-curements.”

The Ministry of Finance is also developing a new model to cen-tralise public procurement.

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A8

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019

BUSINESS

Kazakhstan leads among CIS countries in attracting international development

bank loansStaff Report

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakhstan led among the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries in attracting project funding from international development banks in April-June, reports Finprom.kz.

With 24.9 percent, Kazakhstan exhibited the largest share of ap-proved investment project fund-ing among CIS countries. Eight projects worth $257.7 million were approved for funding in the country in the second quarter of the year.

Russia followed closely behind with a 24.5-percent share of ap-proved investment project funding and five approved projects worth $253.5 million. Ukraine closed the top three with a 23.5-percent share of project funding and projects worth $243.4 million.

International development banks approved project funding of $1 billion in Kazakhstan’s private sector in April-June, which is a 13.3-percent increase from the pro-ject funding approved in January-March. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Eurasian Develop-ment Bank (EDB) were the main source of funding for the country in the second quarter of the year, pro-viding 43.8 percent and 37 percent of total bank loans, respectively. Within the same time period, the EBRD and EDB provided $184.2 million and $73.5 million in loans in the country, respectively.

International development banks provided $874.5 million of loans for Kazakhstan’s projects in January-June, which is a 44.9-per-cent increase from the same period last year, when $603.5 million was invested. The EBRD pro-vided $562.6 million in loans for the country’s projects in January-June and $120 million in loans in the same time period last year. The EDB, Asian Development Bank and the International Finance Cor-poration provided $250.1 million, $51.8 million and $10 million in loans in the second half of the year, respectively.

The EBRD notably directed its funds to a number of green energy projects in Kazakhstan this year. For example, Nomad Solar re-ceived a $35-million loan to con-struct a 28-megawatt solar power station. The bank also granted a $10.4-million loan for the con-struction of a 50-megawatt solar power station in Baikonur and a $22-million loan for the con-struction of a 40-megawatt solar power station in the Karaganda Region.

Petropavlovsk company begins producing refrigeration cars

By Yerbolat Uatkhanov

NUR-SULTAN – Petropavlovsk Heavy Engineering Plant has be-gun producing refrigeration cars to transport short-lived commodities. The company plans not only to sat-isfy local demand, but also export cars to Russia.

The plant is cooperating with Cool Infinity Engineering Corpo-ration, according to the regional chamber of entrepreneurs press service. It is using a full produc-tion cycle based on the firm’s documentation, noted plant gen-eral director Vadim Shakshak-bayev.

“Using our own efforts of the engineering centre, we designed a slip bench rig. We understand what each stage of the technological production of wagons is associated with. We are ready for a dialogue about serious sales volumes with our potential partners. It is impor-

tant that the project allows reload-ing production,” he said.

Cool Infinity General Director Valentin Kargin noted his compa-ny visited many enterprises before selecting a partner.

“We chose Petropavlovsk Heavy Engineering Plant as having the necessary potential. The plant has highly qualified specialists – weld-ers and fitters. It has good potential

in the design and technological di-vision. All this allowed us to start production of the cars in a short period of time and since Febru-ary we have established assembly lines and obtained a certificate of conformity,” he said.

Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs Deputy Chairperson Evgeniy Bolgert also visited the facility, reported Kazinform. He

noted the project was designed to build a new type of railcar in de-mand beyond the Kazakh market.

“The cars will allow increasing the transit and export potential of Kazakhstan. We have outlined cer-tain steps to promote the produc-tion of Petropavlovsk Heavy Engi-neering Plant in Russian markets,” he said.

Petropavlovsk Heavy Engineer-ing Plant, owned by Kazakhstan Engineering, is one of the country’s leading machine building enter-prises. It manufactures oil-and-gas producing, oil-and-gas processing, petrochemical, chemical, gas and power engineering industry equip-ment. The plant uses modern tech-nologies corresponding to ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), API (American Pe-troleum Institute), GOST (Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification), OST (Office of Secure Transportation), STRK and ТЕМА standards.

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The decision about the store was made during a Kazakh delegation visit to Russia led by Prime Minis-ter Askar Mamin, when AIFC and Wildberries also agreed to pro-mote Kazakh producers through the largest online store in the Eura-sian Economic Union (EAEU).

The company agreed to share its electronic commerce experi-ence and information. The first

Wildberries B2B e-commerce expertise centre will open in the capital, combining logistics and educational functions for sup-pliers. It will hold seminars fea-turing company employees and retail and online commerce ex-perts, with topics such as ways to directly accept goods from local partners 24/7. The compa-ny is also planning to launch e-commerce examination centres in other cities.

Wildberries will continue to ex-pand its network throughout Ka-zakhstan, equipped with comfort-able dressing rooms with mirrors for customers to fit clothes and shoes. The company currently has 129 outlets in the country and es-tablished 60 new order centres this year.

Founded in 2004, Wildber-ries operates in Armenia, Be-larus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. Its turnover in 2018

increased by 72 percent to $1.8 billion. The company employs more than 25,000 individu-als and receives approximately 500,000 orders per day. Wildber-ries offers in excess of 2.6 mil-lion items from 22,000 Russian and foreign brands, including clothing and shoes, appliances and electronics, accessories, beauty products, children’s items, household goods, jewel-lery, food and books.

With 24.9 percent, Kazakhstan exhibited the largest share of approved investment project funding among CIS countries.

Wildberries to open branch in AIFC, increase distribution capabilities

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B7SPORTS

Kazakh boy visits UEFA 2019 Football Super Cup, presents prize to Liverpool FC

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Ethnic cuisine, clothing festival introduces participants to ancient nomads’ lifestyle

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THINGS TO WATCH & PLACES TO GO

Nazarbayev University hosts Harvard University’s largest student-run conference in Asia

By Assel Satubaldina

NUR-SULTAN – Nazarbayev University hosted Aug. 16-Aug. 20 the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations Con-ference (HPAIR), gathering 500 students from the world’s top uni-versities to address emerging chal-lenges in the Asian region.

Organised since 1991, HPAIR provides a platform to students to discuss political, social and eco-

nomic issues facing the Asia Pa-cific Region.

HPAIR hosts two conferences every year – one at Harvard and one in a host city in Asia. The con-ference has been to 12 countries involving more than 10,000 stu-dents from across the world.

Nazarbayev University won a six-month intensive and highly competitive bidding process, winning the right to host the conference for the first time in Central Asia, enabling to tap the

huge opportunities the region presents.

“For us, this year, as we were looking over 30 years on, where we should host our next confer-ence, the topic of the fact that we had never been to Central Asia was very much at the top of our minds,” HPAIR Executive Director and Harvard senior student Charles Michael told The Astana Times in an interview for this story.

“This year, with the very strong bid put forward by Nazarbayev

University as well as the readiness of this city to host a conference of this scale, we felt as though this was the year in which we would make our impact as having our first ever HPAIR Asia Conference in Kazakh-stan, in Central Asia. That’s allow-ing us to serve the region of Asia, which we have not been able to tap into in the past and continue our mission of fostering international dialogue among the rising young leaders of all of Asia,” said Michael.

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Akkum Kalkan singing dune fascinates tourists with mystic sounds, legends

By Saltanat Boteu

NUR-SULTAN – The Akkum Kalkan singing dune in Altyn Emel National Park attracts tour-ists with its mystic, melodious sounds. The origins are rooted in several legends.

The dune, approximately 150 metres high, rises in the desert near the Ile River between the two ridges of the Jongar Alatau, Kysty Kalkan and Ulken Kalkan moun-tains. It stretches for nearly three kilometres and is the only dune in the rocky desert covered with saxaul and small shrubs, which makes one wonder how it was

formed and why it has not been blown away by the steppe’s wind, reported tengrinews.kz.

Akkum Kalkan was created as a result of the strong Shilik wind that blows towards the Kysty Kalkan and Ulken Kalkan ridges. The gust brings dust clouds from the shallow Ile River. As it reaches the ridges, it weakens and the sand settles between them, forming the dune. Unlike other dunes, the millennium-long process causes the sand mountain to stay firmly in place, despite the unsteadiness of the sand and wind, allowing it to gain such impressive dimensions.

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Golovkin to face Derevyanchenko in New York for vacant IBF World Middleweight title

By Diana Vassilenko

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakh pro-fessional boxer Gennady Golovkin will face Sergiy Derevyanchenko from Ukraine for the International Boxing Federation (IBF) World Middleweight Championship title at Madison Square Garden (MSG) in New York on Oct. 5.

“Everyone knows that I con-sider Madison Square Garden as my home away from home, and there is nothing better than fighting there again. It is old school,” wrote Golovkin in an Aug. 21 Tweet. “On Oct. 5, it’s going to be a good fight. Every time I enter the ring, I

try to give my fans the fight they want to see, the show they deserve. This will be such a fight. We will bring back the big drama show to the ring of the Garden and to DAZN. Don’t miss it. You will see everything you love in the sport of boxing. See you in New York.”

Golovkin (39-1-1, 35 KOs), 37, is a former unified middleweight world champion with IBF, World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Council (WBC) and International Boxing Organisation titles.

He won the IBF belt in Oct. 2015, stopping David Lemieux in the eighth round of an HBO event at MSG. He defended it three

times before being stripped in spring 2018, after Canelo Alvarez pulled out of a scheduled rematch in May. Derevyanchenko (13-1, 10 KOs) was his mandatory fight.

Golovkin failed to make the de-fence and faced Vanes Martirosyan instead in a short-notice bout on May 5, which was not sanctioned by IBF as a title defence. Derevy-anchenko fought Daniel Jacobs for the vacant title in Oct. 2018, los-ing a split decision at MSG. Jacobs then faced Canelo this past May in a unification, losing the belt to Alvarez. Meanwhile, Derevy-anchenko had beaten Jack Culcay in an eliminator on April 13. Af-ter Alvarez and Derevyanchenko

failed to come to terms, the IBF stripped Canelo of his title, the match of Golovkin and Derevy-anchenko was determined, accord-ing to Bad Left Hook journalist Scott Christ.

“I’m very excited that my team has secured another opportunity for me to fight for the middleweight championship of the world,” said Derevyanchenko. “I have a great deal of respect for GGG and I am looking forward to proving in the ring that I will be up to challenge and fulfil my lifelong dream of be-coming a world champion.”

The clash of the champions will be live on DAZN, the sports streaming platform.

L-R: Gennady Golovkin and Sergiy Derevyanchenko in front of Madison Square Garden.

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The HPAIR delegates pose for a group photo.

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CONGRESS CENTREAug. 28 – Aug. 30 Eurasian Fashion Week, fashion

show

ASTANA OPERASept. 5 at 7 p.m. Birzhan-Sara, opera

Sept. 7 at 6 p.m. An Evening of Piano Music, concert

Sept. 8 at 6 p.m. Zhannat Baktay’s Recital, concert

BARYS ARENASept. 3 at 7.30 p.m. HC Barys Astana – HC Admiral,

hockey

Sept. 5 at 7.30 p.m. HC Barys Astana – HC Amur, hockey

ASTANA ARENASept. 6 at 3 p.m. Kazakhstan U21 – Spain U21,

European U21 Championship

Qualification Round

Nevada-Semipalatinsk activists to release book about initiatives in

building nuclear weapon free worldBy Zhanna Shayakhmetova

NUR-SULTAN – Vice Presi-dent of the Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement Sultan Kartoev and teacher at Nazarbayev Intellectual school Askhat Zhumabekov will release in December a book titled “Kazakhstan is an architect of a nuclear weapon free world.” The release of the book will coincide with the 70th anniversary of the first nuclear explosion at the Sovi-et Union’s Semipalatinsk Test Site located 150 kilometres west of the village of Semey.

Approximately 1.5 million Ka-zakh people have suffered as a result of the 456 nuclear tests con-ducted at the Semipalatinsk nucle-ar test site over 40 years.

“This is a unique book as it con-tains all the materials related to the Semipalatinsk test site. We want more people to know about the vic-tims of the nuclear tests and what people have suffered from. It tells about the testing consequences and what Kazakhstan and our move-ment are doing to build a nuclear weapon free world,” said Kartoev in an interview for this story.

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Nur-Sultan’s first free social store revives Kazakh tradition

of mutual help, supportBy Diana Vassilenko

NUR-SULTAN – Qarqyn.kz is the capital’s first free social store, where people in need, large fami-lies, single-parent families and families of those with disabilities can choose anything from clothing and shoes to toys, furniture, appli-ances and food.

“The first store was opened in Shymkent last year. We opened the second one in the capital on Feb.

23, 2019. The idea to open the store was to revive the Kazakh tra-dition of asar (together in Kazakh), which encourages mutual help and support,” said Qarqyn.kz Deputy Director Berik Arystanbayev.

Individuals may visit the store once a month and take up to three items; in a family of five, each per-son may select three things. Items such as strollers, car seats, cribs and bicycles are not included as part of the total.

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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019

Mangystau Region revives ancient crafts, traditions

Staff Report

NUR-SULTAN – The Mangys-tau Region is promoting the Anyz Tulga (Human Legend in Kazakh) project, which recognises tradi-tional Kazakh crafters and encour-ages them to teach their skills to young people to preserve ancient arts. The Council of Business-women of the regional Atameken Chamber of Entrepreneurs initi-ated the programme.

“It is vital that the yurt, which reflects our nation’s culture and identity, is passed on from genera-tion to generation. First and fore-most, however, is our own desire to do so. Currently, I am trying to pass on all my experience and skills to my daughters and my sons’ wives. I am also willing to teach anyone who is interested in this art,” said Medina Izbasarova.

Izbasarova, who holds the Al-tyn Alka (gold pendant in Kazakh, awarded to mothers who have giv-en birth and raised seven or more children), is one of the few women in the western part of the country who has preserved the art of deco-rating yurts according to all the rules and traditions. Her example is stored in the National Museum as a unique example of Kazakh craft and is a national treasure.

Izbasarova is one of the first individuals to be included in the Anyz Tulga project. Her unique creations are recognised by the Union of Kazakh Artisans.

“We must preserve our national identity, which is directly linked to our ancient crafts. It will be sad if in 20 years, signs of our crafts remain only in museums. There is a custom in many countries for the government or some other na-tional organisation to take people with unique crafting talents in full care in order to transfer their skills, abilities and unique technologies to potential students. I believe there

are no more than 10-15 such liv-ing legends in Kazakhstan, maybe even fewer. There is a need in time to preserve the uniqueness that we still have. In my opinion, we have a maximum of five-seven years left, since all the unique masters are of advanced age. They are all at least 70 years old. I would not want to hear such words in the mu-seums of Kazakhstan in ten years as ‘These crafts and techniques have been lost,’” said Council of Businesswomen Chairperson Saule Salikhova.

She noted the nation’s artisans need government support on all levels, including local, to ensure the region’s crafts are preserved. The Kazakh market is currently overflowing with products made by Kyrgyz artisans. Kyrgyzstan, like Uzbekistan, has adopted a na-tional programme to support and develop its crafts.

“That is why we are promoting the Anyz Tulga project. The main goal of the project is to preserve all the production technologies of the Kazakh yurt. It is of great impor-tance for Kazakhs. It is our genetic code. In the Mangystau Region, only four people can make native Kazakh yurts from the start of wool selection to the last stroke. Also, in order to preserve crafts and unite all craftspeople of the region in one group, in 2017 we created the Union of Artisans of the Man-gystau Region Association, a part of which are all our well-known craftspeople,” said Salikhova

Auyes Saginayeva, one of the project’s motivators, is a recog-nised Kazakh specialist in both modern and ancient felting tech-niques. As head of the regional As-sociation of Artisans, she is seek-ing a location for the Crafts Centre in Aktau, a joint project of the re-gional Chamber of Entrepreneurs and Council of Businesswomen.

The main problem in the Man-gystau Region is the lack of a cen-

tre where craftspeople could create their masterpieces and give master classes. The demand for such a space is huge, not to mention the artisans themselves working in their homestead sheds.

“Foreign visitors tend to re-quest to be taken to such centres. When they find out we do not have such places, they are dumb-founded, saying that we have so many unique crafts and traditions, why would not we want to create a place to demonstrate all of them. Few people remain who are en-gaged in arts and crafts. If we do not take action in these next two-three years, it will be too late. All our craftspeople are aged, most being 70 years old or more. I cur-rently invite people and teach them modern and traditional felting techniques. Both students and art teachers from schools come with pleasure to learn. I don’t have my own workshop; I work at home,” said Saginayeva.

Kumis Kosbai creates baskurs (woven woollen stripes to deco-rate a yurt), which are a topic of regional legends. She learned the art of weaving the furnishings and making items from koshma (large felt mats) from her mother.

“When I was in the second grade, my mother taught me to weave a type of baskur called the ninth eye and she also taught me how to make a type of ornament that looks like a unicorn made out of 13 threads. My mother told me that if I learned how to weave pat-terns on a rug, it would be easier to learn the ornamental technique, which looks like a ram’s horn. That is how I learned it,” she said.

Kosbai is one of the four project candidates, as well as one of the masters who will teach those wish-ing to learn the craft. She and other skilled Mangystau craftswomen are willing to provide master class-es for anyone from any part of the country.

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The book will be of great inter-est for those interested in the his-tory of weapons testing in Kazakh-stan and Kazakhstan’s path toward seeking a nuclear weapons free world. It also shows the dialogue between the society and govern-ment, non-governmental organisa-

tions and public authorities in the country.

“We are ready to support each other’s initiatives because we have one goal. The world community should see that Kazakhstan is a pi-oneer in building a nuclear weapon free world. And we still continue to promote nuclear disarmament. Nu-clear test sites must also be closed, otherwise, there is still a threat of the third world war. Our goal is not just to close landfills, but not have nuclear weapons. It is a weapon of mass destruction that will destroy all nations,” he said.

Kartoev emphasised the role of Kazakhstan’s First President, Nur-sultan Nazarbayev, who signed the historic decree shutting down the Semipalatinsk test site in 1991.

“Nazarbayev and the people of Kazakhstan made the decision to give up what was then the world’s fourth largest nuclear arsenal and close the test site. The world rec-ognised our efforts and the United Nations declared August 29 the International Day against Nuclear Tests in 2009,” he said.

The activists also celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Nevada-Semipalatinsk anti-nuclear move-

ment, which united more than two million people worldwide. The movement, recognised as “a world phenomenon,” is led by writer Olzhas Suleimenov. He announced the objectives of the organisation at the Congress of People’s Depu-ties of the Soviet Union in 1989.

Kartoev recalled the day when the foreign ministers of Kazakh-

stan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turk-menistan and Uzbekistan signed a treaty establishing a Central Asian nuclear weapons free zone Sept. 8, 2006 in Semey.

“It was a historical event. The agreement created the world’s fifth nuclear weapons free zone including those in Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pa-cific, Southeast Asia and Africa. I hope that if we continue our activities, we will achieve real results. I am grateful to our Presi-dent Kassym-Jomart Tokayev who continues the country’s nu-clear non-proliferation policy and supports our initiatives. The Ka-zakh government adopted laws to protect and support the testing victims. Many affected people with disabilities still reside in the region. No one knows the health impacts from radiation on people, including the second and third generation,” he said.

As a participant of all major in-ternational anti-nuclear forums, Kartoev is engaged in the move-ment’s activities for 30 years. And he still remembers the whole events as if it was yesterday.

“After each explosion, chande-

liers jumped in our houses, dishes and books fell, and cracks ap-peared in homes,” he said. “People did not know what was happening because there were no warnings. We knew that there was a test area, but we did not know when the ex-plosion would occur.”

In 2015, Kartoev and Zhumabe-kov released the book, “Kazakh-

stan’s way to a Nuclear Weapon Free World,” published by Ger-man Lap Lambert Academic Pub-lishing.

The first part of the book was about the research work conduct-ed by Zhumabekov and students of Semei Nazarbayev Intellectual School. They visited all regions and measured water, air and land indicators to prove that the radia-tion background in the Semei re-gion does not differ from other re-gions 25 years after the closing of the test site.

“The older generation should share their experience with young-er generation. Due to this, we de-liver lectures dedicated to peace studies in all schools nationwide. We want them to advocate for the world without nuclear weapons. As long as we have weapons, we should not sit still,” he said.

Kartoev supports the idea of making the test site a tourist area.

“Some people are interested in this area. They visit the test site, the dead nuclear lake and the nuclear history museum in Kur-chatov. There is now a scientific centre, which studies the multiple testing consequences,” he said.

L-R: Head of regional youth wing of Nevada – Semipalatinsk movement Ruslan Kibke, Sultan Kartoev, leader of Nevada – Semipalatinsk movement Olzhas Suleimenov, veteran of Nevada – Semipalatinsk movement Bolat Serikbayev and Nazarbayev Intellectual School teacher Askhat Zhumabekov at the meeting with students of the Shakarim State University in Semei on May 30.

Young people learn family values, acquire sense of environmental responsibility through social life, says Slavic community leader

By Saltanat Boteu

NUR-SULTAN – The Slavic ethno cultural centre in the Pav-lodar Region has been working for 23 years to preserve Slavic culture and languages by promoting crea-tivity, physical and spiritual devel-opment, patriotism and human-ist education, especially among youth, said the centre’s head Taty-ana Kuzina.

“The most important thing for young people is charity action for children left without parental care and children with disabili-ties. Participating in such events, young people learn how to value their own lives and how to value family values. The most impor-tant is the sense of responsibility for the environment,” she told as-sembly.kz.

The centre, uniting branches in ten districts, has more than 5,000 members. In addition to the local network, it has agreements with the Barnaul, Novosibirsk, Omsk and Tomsk regions and is part of the Russian International Council

of Compatriots, where Kuzina sits on the board.

The centre has many creative groups. The Bereginya dancing

and singing group, created in 2007 with five members, has gained

popularity and led by professional singer since 2009.

“In less than a decade, the singer has united young people and cre-ated a great team. The assembly has great interest in it. Bereginya has become a favourite group, participating in regional and city events. The folklore of the Russian people is promoted in the group,” said Kuzina.

Bereginya won the Yertis Festi-val, a river of friendship regional Russian song event dedicated to Slavic writing and culture, and the Dostyq (Friendship) summer re-gional folk festival.

The centre also offers the Rya-binushka lyric song group, Lada vocal group, Pavlodar folk dance miniature theatre and Razdolye dance club for children aged five-16. As it is located in the former October cinema building, it organ-ises movie nights, when members share their impressions after view-ing the films.

The centre also has charitable groups, such as Over a Cup of Tea club, where those in need chat with friends and celebrate birthdays and

holidays. The centre has developed a professional teachers network, where educators exchange experi-ences in their disciplines.

The centre’s women club ac-quaints participants with local and Russian famous biographies, organises young people’s meet-ings and literary evenings with local poets and writers. People’s Artist of Russia and Professor of the All-Union State Cinema Insti-tute Vladimir Khotinenko, Peo-ple’s Artist of Russia Yevgenyi Mironov, writer/director Sergey Gazarov and folktale writer Yelena Sapogova are among those who have shared their thoughts.

In recent years, the centre has been a coordinator of the Pav-lodar book supply programme. As a result, the region’s librar-ies can receive Russian books for free and the centre has a good understanding of its book culture, said Kuzina. The libraries and the centre’s creative clubs regularly conduct literary holidays, present new books, sponsor meetings with authors and hold literary quizzes among students.

Slavic ethno cultural centre head Tatyana Kuzina (C) and the Bereginya dancing and singing group.

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Ethnic cuisine, clothing festival introduces participants to ancient nomads’ lifestyle

Staff Report

NUR-SULTAN – A weeklong festival dedicated to Kazakh ethnic cuisine and clothing started Aug. 12 at the Nomad Ethnographic Centre in Zhanakurlys village of the Almaty Region. Participants can learn ethnic recipes, visit the-matic shows and attend handmade master classes.

Expert restaurateur Serikhan Adilkhanov noted ethnic cuisine is like a mirror reflecting a people’s history, customs and traditions and from the first day, chefs from Almaty restaurants and masters of nomadic costumes have tried to transport individuals to ancient times.

The chefs prepared several types of beshbarmak (boiled meat with noodles and spiced onion sauce), sirne (fried and baked lamb),

pilaf (rice cooked in stock or broth with spices, vegetables and meat), kuyrdak (fried meat, usu-ally sheep’s liver, kidney, heart and lungs) and many other national dishes. The presentation continued with a series of master classes and lectures, where culinary experts and those keeping ancient tradi-tions shared the secrets of cook-ing meat, dairy dishes and bakery products.

Of particular interest to the par-ticipants, especially those from European countries, was the gas-tronomic show Unique Kazakh Dishes. They were introduced to the traditions of serving meat such as tabaq tartu and cutting ram carcasses such as jіlіkteu. Eth-nographers talked about the ways ancient nomads stored and trans-ported food.

Participants also learned about the peculiarities of pre-

paring forgotten ethnic cui-sine such as syrbaz, a type of kuyrdak cooked exclusively in kymyz (fermented mare’s milk). The preparation gives the dish a special piquancy and is considered a kind of aperitif to accelerate the appetite.

After lunch, the visitors watched a riding show and archery compe-titions on horseback.

The day culminated with a dis-play of military armour and cos-tumes. The Nomads Fashion show, arranged by the country’s leading designers, ended with the Sweets from Saumal (fresh horse milk) chocolate display.

“By organising such festivals, we want to show foreign guests, as well as our compatriots, a rich palette of Kazakh culture,” said Nomad Ethno Centre Director Zhandos Nurbekov. “Our ances-tors were not only brave warriors, but also skilled craftsmen, culinary specialists, tailors. Many thanks to the enthusiasts and masters of his-torical reconstruction, Stanislav Potapov and Daniyar Baidaralin, who are trying today to reliably recreate the nomadic way of life of the steppes.”Ph

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National Museum hosts ArmandaStar exhibition to celebrate young artists

By Diana Vassilenko

NUR-SULTAN – The Arman-daStar exhibition, designed to support the work of young artists as part of the Year of Youth in Ka-zakhstan, opened Aug. 2 at the Na-tional Museum.

“Kazakhstan’s First President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, declared the year 2019 as the Year of Youth. In this regard, various events are being held to support our youth. Today’s exhibition is proof of this,”

said National Museum Director Arystanbek Mukhamediuly at the exhibition’s opening ceremony. “Kazakh art is well known all over the world and we want our talented youth to be known not only in our country but also abroad. Arman-daStar is their first step and I hope these artists participate in major exhibitions in the future.”

Armandastar is a wordplay and the name of a very famous song whose meaning can be roughly translated as “friends united by a common dream.” The title of the

exhibition, ArmandaStar, is then another wordplay on top of the original one.

Temirlan Abenov, Aliya Am-renova, Dilorom Ashirbekova, Gulbaram Askarova, Lyudmila Aytuarova, Nurbolat Bazarbayev, Gulnara Dairova, Anelya Hakimo-va, Meirman Ilyasov, Narkes Iman-gazy, Aigerim Karibayeva, Aidana Kulakhmetova, Azamat Nurtazin, Valeriya Sergeyeva and Bakhyt Zhorayev were chosen to exhibit following a competitive selection process conducted by the organis-

ers and museum’s art expert team. The event is co-curated by artist and art critic Aigerim Mazhitkhan, whose video art is also on display.

“The artists we selected come from different backgrounds, with some being professional artists and graduates of Kazakh art uni-versities and others doing art as a hobby. Their ages range from 17-35. They come from Aktau, Almaty, Nur-Sultan, Pavlodar and Petropavlovsk,” said museum art manager and critic Aknur Kuan-dykova.

Approximately 80 artworks are on display. The young artists raise many questions with their crea-tions, exploring themes such as nature and beauty, identity and fit-ting into modern society. The vari-ety of issues are expressed through diversity of techniques, including watercolour, oil, pencil, ceramics, trash art (a tapestry from plastic bags) and video art. The exhibit is designed in such a way that de-spite the range, it is perceived as a unified space where the identity of each participant is preserved and well-defined.

“All of the exhibited artworks are for sale, by the way. The interested visitors may choose an art piece and we’ll contact the artist to dis-cuss the price,” said Kuandykova.

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Kazakh musician is youngest graduate of Italy’s oldest academy

Staff Report

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakh com-poser and pianist Rakhat-Bi Ab-dysagin recently completed the doctoral programme at Santa Cecilia Academy, Rome. He is among the institution’s five best musicians of 2017 and the young-est graduate of the nation’s oldest musical academy.

For the final exam, Abdysagin presented his work “Ombre del Vuoto” (Shadows of the Void), written for 11 performers repre-senting each section of a sympho-ny orchestra.

Abdysagin wrote his first com-position at age ten and published his inaugural work, “Mathematics and Contemporary Music,” three years later. He began his gradu-ate studies at 17 and a year later started an internship at the Mos-cow State Tchaikovsky Conserva-tory. He was accepted for doctoral studies at Italy’s top three univer-sities – Milan and Padua conserv-atories and the Academy of Santa Cecilia.

Abdysagin is a composer, pia-nist, master of art history and au-

thor of more than 100 classical works. He is a laureate of Kazakh-stan’s Daryn State Youth Prize, holds an honorary Merits Badge in the Commonwealth Independ-ent States’ Inter-Parliamentary Assembly Development of Cul-ture and Art, member of the Tchai-kovsky International Competition Association of Laureates and one of the nation’s 100 New Faces.

His compositions are played in concert halls throughout Aus-tria, China, the Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Romania, Russia, Slove-nia, South Korea, Spain, Switzer-land, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Abdysagin is the youngest par-ticipant and lecturer at the Inter-national Council for Traditional Music, Impuls International En-semble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music.

Santa Cecilia Academy, found-ed in 1585 as a congregation by order of Pope Gregory XIII, was transformed into an academy in 1838. Its famous graduates in-clude Italian musicians Giaco-mo Carissimi, Luigi Cherubini, Gaetano Donizetti, Girolamo

Frescobaldi, Claudio Montever-di, Niccolò Paganini, Gioachino

Rossini, Arturo Toscanini, and Giuseppe Verdi.

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Eurasian Fashion Week to display new styles in

Nur-Sultan, AlmatyBy Aidana Yergaliyeva

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakh and Kyrgyz fashion designers will pre-sent their Spring-Summer 2020 collections during Eurasian Fash-ion Week (EFW) Aug. 28-30 in the capital and Sept. 10-12 in Al-maty. The event is also a chance for young designers to display their works and learn how to launch their brands.

“Eurasian Fashion Week is a breath of fashion designed to brighten up your everyday life. This is an international platform on which the future trends of the entire Eurasian continent will be decided. This is a fashionable rocket that will send most newcomers to the cosmic heights of success,” notes vintage.kz.

The biggest fashion event for the Commonwealth of Independ-ent States (CIS) will bring together editors from the best Italian and Russian fashion publications, jour-nalists, bloggers, street-style pho-tographers and models.

Designers such as Gulmira Ke-delbayeva and Zhannar Shurayeva (Quraq Korpe), Olga and Tatyana Stan (Endorfin), Hanum Aidash (Hanum), Nurgul Ryskulova (Nuri Ryskulova) and Gulnar Kassymova (Gulnara Kassym GK) will repre-sent the Kazakh fashion industry. Invited designers from Kyrgyzstan will include Dinara Ratsko (Dina Ratsko) and Yekaterina Zabolot-nova (Kate Zabolotnova).

EFW will have a number of work-shops. Stephan Rabimov, founder and editor-in-chief of Bmag.io and DEPESHA magazine, journalist and fashion columnist, will present public talks on social media strat-egies for fashion start-ups in the capital and Fashion Diplomacy in Almaty.

The capital’s fashion days will in-clude Trend & Tendance President Lyudmila Mikhailova-Komandre talking about five solutions for a successful brand, and stylist, fash-ion blogger Zhanna Akhmetova taking on the role of a stylist in the fashion industry, as well as Brosh Jewellery founder Olga Kim and

designer Ainur Turysbek as speak-ers.

Almaty’s aspiring designers will have the opportunity to learn about design culture and design research in fashion styling from Andrea Nardi. She is a buyer, stylist and business consultant in internation-al fashion companies and current professor of clothing design, pro-curement and communications at Istituto Europeo di Design Florence (IED). IED Professor Yekaterina Antonova will conduct a master class on the future of fashion be-tween e-commerce and new stores.

Almaty visitors may attend pub-lic talks by European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Women in Business Pro-gramme Coordinator Evgeny Son, neuropsychologist and business coach Vladislava Drutko and eco-artist and founder of the Eco-Art Studio project at Art Hotel Ecotel in Moscow Yekaterina Vorontsova.

Fashion week is also a chance for debutants to conquer the most strin-gent fashion critics with their views and creativity. Fashion for Future 2018 competition finalist Zuhra Ai-kenova and Altyn Oimaq national competition finalists will show their collections for the first time.

The event is also an opportunity for those who want to develop and create a local brand. Organisations such as the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs, Min-istry of Foreign Affairs, Kazakh Invest and EBRD will consult on existing state programmes and possible government investments during panel discussions and work-shops.

The EFW team and IED will pre-sent the works of finalists from a July 31 competition among young local designers and students. The participants were tasked to design prêt-à-porter (ready-to-wear) cloth-ing lines that interpret the rich Ka-zakh culture using use recycled or environmentally friendly materials.

The organising team selected ten out of 600 CIS applicants Aug. 20 to present their works during the fashion week. The winner will re-ceive a training grant at the IED Summer Fashion School in Italy.

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Toxic by Aidana Kulakhmetova, a tapestry made from plastic bags.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019

NATION&CAPITALB4

COUNTRY

Nur-Sultan top-notch specialists hold master classes for Akmola Region doctors

By Diana Vassilenko

NUR-SULTAN – The capital’s top medical specialists held two master classes at the Akmola Re-gion Multidisciplinary Hospital. The operations and surgical train-ings at the leading capital clinics concerned pancreatic cancer and polytrauma.

In the first class, surgical oncol-ogist and National Scientific Medi-cal Centre surgical department head Yerzhan Shayakhmetov, who is also a student of one of the na-tion’s leading oncologists, Profes-sor Abai Makishev, completed a gastropancreatic duodenal pancre-as resection, reported BNews.kz.

Akmola doctors prepared a pa-tient who was admitted to the hos-pital the previous month with ob-structive jaundice.

“This is a complex case, as there is a tumour in the head of the pan-creas that grows in the duodenum (first part of the small intestine). It is malignant by sight,” said Shay-akhmetov.

“We removed one-third of the

head and body of the pancreas, one-fifth of the stomach, the gall bladder with the common bile duct and the duodenum. After removing the entire tumour, there was a need to perform a reconstructive opera-tion. Speaking in scientific terms, we completed an anastomosis. In plain English, we stitched the remainder of the pancreas to the jejunum (middle segment of the small intestine) and stomach. That is, the digestive cycle in this case is not disturbed. The anatomy is artificially restored,” he added.

The operation was successful. Developing the new technique, said Akmola Multidisciplinary Hospital Deputy Chief Physician for Surgery Dmitry Tchaikov, will enable implementing more wide-spread pancreatic surgery and re-duce the number of complications.

“Operations will be safer for patients and will help maintain an acceptable quality of life. Now, Akmola patients will not have to go to national scientific centres for this,” he added.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most complex and wide spread

diseases, not only in Kazakhstan, but the whole world. In the Ak-mola region, it is ranked the sixth.

“The bottom line is that the pa-tient, as a rule, is admitted to the hospital in severely advanced stag-es, such as the third and fourth. One-year mortality is over 90 per-cent. That is, on average, a person ‘burns out’ in just a year, because

the disease is diagnosed in the late stages,” said Mikhail Alekseev, head of the Akmola Region Mul-tidisciplinary Hospital oncology surgery department.

More than 9,000 patients diag-nosed with cancer are registered in the region’s cancer service centre.

The second class concerned rescuing patients in critical con-

dition after traffic accidents, falls, soil collapse, or industrial injuries. Anaesthetist-resuscitators, sur-geons and neurosurgeons, trauma-tologists and others gathered for the meeting. Participants spoke about the relevance of the seminar, given the high mortality rate and the fact that the number of acci-dents is increasing every year.

“According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there are more than a million deaths per year caused by injuries from road acci-dents and other accidents. There-fore, conducting effective intensive care for such patients is crucial,” said Aidos Konkayev, head of the anaesthesiology and intensive care departments at Astana Medi-cal University and the Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedics.

He demonstrated emergency assistance in polytrauma in the intensive care, surgery and trau-matology departments of the mul-tidisciplinary hospital.

“We explored the issues of seda-tion (artificial coma) and the prep-aration of patients with chronic heart failure for scheduled surgery.

During the operations, we per-formed several significant cases of arthroscopic and orthopaedic in-terventions. We tried to analyse the most difficult situations,” he said.

Questions raised by doctors con-cerned the standards for polytrau-ma treatment, analysis of world experience and its application in Kazakhstan and organising emer-gency care, equipment, personnel and medical provisions most effec-tive for polytrauma.

“A multidisciplinary approach plays a large role in the treatment of such patients, such as when spe-cialist treatment is carried out not only by resuscitation doctors, but also by certain specialists, such as traumatologists, neurosurgeons and surgeons. The effectiveness of the treatment depends on their professionalism and coordinated work. The second important point is the provision of equipment. Pro-fessor Konkayev clarified very im-portant nuances and controversial points in treatment tactics,” said Yuri Kabargin, the head of the in-tensive care unit at Akmola Multi-disciplinary Hospital.

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Volunteers build house for four single mothers

By Yerbolat Uatkhanov

NUR-SULTAN – Volunteers in Guldala village in the Almaty Re-gion helped to build a large house for four single mothers raising 18 children. The project was initiated by the Nuraniy Anilar public fund under the Kazakhstan’s Uyghurs National Ethnocultural Centre.

Nuraniy Anilar head Dhzakhan-gir Muratova recently handed the keys to the new owners who, due to various circumstances, re-mained without a roof over their heads.

Muratova was raised in a large family and, having lost her par-ents at an early age, decided to help those in need. She initially supported the poor villagers with groceries and clothes and helped collect school supplies for the children, then decided to build a house.

“I thought if people, the whole

people would help me, if there are sponsors, how many houses can be built. There would be fewer home-less people, so that people don’t have difficulties; children play calm-ly, laugh, so that they don’t wander around other people’s apartments – such thoughts came to me,” she said.

Thanks to the efforts of citizens and volunteers, the huge house appeared on the bare plot in three months. People helped to collect 14 million tenge (US$36,300).

“We are engaged in the con-struction of houses for poor and large families who are in a diffi-cult situation. The single mothers had nowhere to go and we con-nected to many people, contacted bloggers and shared the informa-tion on social networks and thou-sands of people contributed dif-ferent amounts of money – 500 (US$1.30), 1,000 (US$2.60) tenge each. As a result, we see the house. This is our first home, our victo-ry. Four mothers and 18 children

received this house. We are still building houses. Contact us! This is the achievement of the whole nation,” said volunteer Askhat Nurmashev.

Upon receiving the keys to their new apartments, the mothers could not hold back their tears. They thanked the project organisers and all the volunteers for their tremen-dous help.

“Finally, my children will go to one school, will live in one place, without wandering. For two days now I can’t fall asleep; I don’t know how to express my joy! I go around the house, do my house-work, then cry, then laugh, unex-pected happiness – this is happen-ing for the first time in my life!” said Zarina Churukova.

Tatyana, another new resident, divorced her husband and was left alone with five children in her arms. Having received the keys to her own housing, she can barely believe her good fortune.

Shymkent youth centre launches outreach mentorship, employment services

By Nazira Kozhanova

NUR-SULTAN – Outreach mentorship and employment ser-vices launched in early August at the Shymkent Youth Resources Centre, reported 24.kz.

The primary mission is to em-ploy and motivate young people who neither work nor study. The project is a one-of-a-kind in Ka-zakhstan.

“Our task is to help young peo-ple who do not study and do not engage in self-development. There are those who want to start their own business, but can’t because of the lack of money. We tell them about government programmes and give them a direction towards which to move,” said centre direc-tor Nurdaulet Tanirbergen.

The new services are aimed at helping young people solve their primary problems. Employees are prepared to provide them with a variety of support options, from finding seasonal employment to joining creative networks. More than 2,000 unemployed individu-als are interested in the services of the outreach specialists, according to centre staff.

One of the first success stories is entrepreneur Ilyas Ikramov who, using advice he received at the centre, applied for and won an emerging entrepreneurs grant. Ikramov is a biologist who, with the centre’s assistance, started a California worms business, where he breeds and sells the animals.

“California worms breed rapid-ly. I sell them not only to farmers, but also to fishermen and poultry farmers. With the help of worms,

I myself produce vermicompost at home,” he told 24.kz.

The Shymkent Youth Resourc-es Centre, launched in 2016, was funded by 120 million tenge (US$311,000) from the state budget and 13 million tenge (US$31,000) from the regional one. The 1,979-square metre space contains in-demand servic-es from a psychologist’s office to a recording studio, as well as study rooms.

Radiation levels in Kazakhstan remain normal following explosion at Russian missile testing facility

By Yekaterina Yeliseyeva

NUR-SULTAN – Radiation lev-els in Kazakhstan after Aug. 8 ex-plosion at a Russian missile testing facility, according to the Kazakh hydrometeorological service Ka-zgidromet’s tests, remain normal as the air masses from Arkhangel-sk, where the explosion happened, have not reached Kazakhstan.

“The monitoring of the radiation background and radiation pollu-tion of the surface atmosphere in Kazakhstan is carried out by meas-uring the gamma background (ex-posure dose rate) at 85 observation points and the beta-active depo-sition density at 43 observation points by continuous air sampling with horizontal filters five times a day and analysing in an accredited radiation laboratory in Almaty,” reported the Kazgidromet press service.

Four Russian nuclear monitoring stations have stopped reporting on the radioactivity after the explosion, which occurred Aug. 8 as a result of testing a liquid propulsion system at the Russian Ministry of Defence testing facility in the Arkhangelsk Region. The explosion caused con-

cern about possible increases in ra-diation levels. Russia’s Ministry of Defence reported that two people were killed. The State Atomiс En-ergy Corporation Rosatom later an-nounced the death of five of its em-ployees. Both the military and local authorities said that the radiation background has not been altered.

“There is no threat there, and there is no increase in the (radia-tion) background either,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said about the situation in Arkhangelsk at the Aug. 19 press conference.

According to Kazgidromet tests, the radiation appeared to be nor-mal in Kazakh regions close to the Russian border, namely, in the Ak-

tobe, East Kazakhstan, Kostanai, North Kazakhstan, Pavlodar, and West Kazakhstan regions. The re-sults of the laboratory analysis of the beta-active deposition density will be announced by Sept. 5.

“From Aug. 8-14, air masses from Arkhangelsk and Severod-vinsk regions moved to the north-ern part of the Ural Mountains at a speed of approximately 12 km per hour and did not reach the territory of Kazakhstan. From Aug. 14-19, most of the territory of Kazakhstan was influenced by the warm air masses that travelled from the re-gions of Iran through Kazakhstan and further to western Siberia,” the Kazgidromet press said.

Almaty Emergency Department manages mudflow alarm in Nauryzbay district

Staff Report

NUR-SULTAN – Early-season preparation helped Almaty’s Nau-ryzbay District emergency offi-cials respond to and avert an Au-gust mudflow.

The mudflow risk was in the Nauryzbay District, near the Kar-galinka River. This risk occurred because the water level in the lake located in the district drastically increased, and the dam could have broken down. The district residents were advised to leave the district with their documents, as, even though the threat was not certain, the outcome was unclear at the time of the emergency announce-ment. However, the mudflow was prevented by the city’s emergency department.

This year, preventive work to control the water level began June 6 before the crisis alert announce-ment. To do this, six high-perfor-mance pumps and siphon threads from plastic pipes were set up by the Emergency Department work-ers, and the evacuation channel for transiting water drainage was laid with the help of an excavator.

“The sides of KazAviaSpas, the Almaty Rescue Services and the personnel of the National Guard were alerted. All personnel, forces and assets of the Almaty Depart-ment of Emergencies were raised for alarm to respond,” said the Emergency Department in a July 14 official statement.

According to the department, 1.6 million cubic metres of water was discharged since the crisis alert announcement. Eight areas

prone to flooding in the event of mudflow were identified in ad-vance, and a group of forces and means for emergency response of 216 people and with a total num-ber of 59 pieces of equipment were prepared.

“At this moment, water was squeezed out of the lake, a criti-cal water discharge in the Kargaly riverbed is not observed. In gen-eral, the Kargaly riverbed is stable and can pass up to 20 cubic me-tres per second (the current flow rate is at 3.6 cubic metres). The situation is stable, under control, there is no reason to panic,” said the emergency department official statement.

Later, Almaty Akim (Mayor) Bakytzhan Sagintayev arrived to the mudflow risk area to control the preventive works.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019

NATION&CAPITALB5

SOCIETY

University to produce reduced salt bread to improve health

By Diana Vassilenko

NUR-SULTAN – The Saken Seifullin Kazakh AgroTechnical University experimental bread and bakery production plant will start supplying reduced salt bread for its students and teachers. The action will be one of the key measures in preventing noncommunicable disease.

“Excessive salt intake leads to metabolic disturbances in the body, such as water-salt balance disturbances, salt accumula-tion in the body, tooth damage, gastritis and stomach ulcers. It causes the aging process to ac-celerate. Excessive salt intake increases blood pressure, which in turn increases the risk of heart disease and strokes,” said Emina Ilyasova, head of the city’s poly-

clinic No. 3 therapeutic depart-ment.

In July, the National Centre of Public Health and AgroTechnical University signed a memorandum of cooperation with the main goal of modifying bread and bakery product recipes by gradually re-ducing the salt content. The chang-es will develop a strong nutritional culture and strengthen young peo-ple’s health.

The decision to specifically reduce salt in bread was based on World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations, which noted the most effective way to begin decreasing sodium is with mass consumption products. They hope other manufacturers will sup-port the initiative and start reduc-ing salt in their items.

The health centre and university agreed that, over time, medical or-

ganisations must realise their new mission – to teach the population about a healthy lifestyle, preven-tive measures and proper nutrition. At the primary healthcare level, the most important guidelines to develop the future health protec-tion system, such as From Illness to Health and to Educate and Take Care instead of Treating, must be followed.

“Parents should teach their chil-dren about the dangers of salt and unhealthy diets. In school, it is also vital to start educating children on the importance of a healthy diet from the first grade. If correctly explained, the children will quick-ly understand everything; they will never drink nor eat a harmful prod-uct,” said Ilyasova.

“By eating right today, we are taking care of our health in ad-vance for many years,” she added.

Continued from Page B1

Families in need are permitted to take items at any time regard-less of whether they have already reached their limit. They may even file a request with their contact in-formation and are then notified if a particular item is donated.

“Recently, we had to unfortunately make a new temporary regulation – all visitors have to donate 500 tenge (US$1.30) for the operation of the 200-square-metre store, which re-quires 900,000 tenge (US$2,325) a month. This includes rent and ad-ministrative expenses. Thus, our clients contribute to the store, which would usually function on 80 percent of what our director earns from his private business, which is currently stopped,” Arystanbayev added.

Qarqyn.kz has more than 30 visitors a day from all parts of the country. People also regularly bring donations, which they are encour-aged to sort, hang and display. The store has four full-time volunteers, while students and schoolchildren from the Astana Zhastary Youth Resource Centre help at least three times a week. A proposed small wage may serve to encourage ad-ditional student workers.

“We witness sad cases, when peo-

ple who donate to our store end up being those in need. There was a mother of twins, whose apartment burned down completely. The fam-

ily ended up with nothing but the clothes they had on. The mother came to our store and took every-thing she needed until she’d over-come the difficulties. On the other hand, there are very fortunate cases.

There was a single mother with six children who was a regular visitor of our store; one day she stopped com-ing and the other, she came to bring whatever she no longer needed. It made us happy to see that those in need become those who help. The Kazakh tradition of asar has truly been revived,” said Arystanbayev.

Though most donations are used, clothing shops such as Syndicate Boutique provide new items. All tags are removed, so people can choose on need and not worth.

“Occasionally, people donate money to our shop. All the furniture we have is fully or partially spon-sored by kind people. For example, we paid for the materials needed to make shoe shelves and a furniture company made them for free. All of the clothes racks were also paid for. Even so, we were on the verge of closing down at the start of Au-gust as we stopped receiving finan-cial support. We really hope people from around the world, people who can and want to help, will donate money or become legal custodians, so we can continue helping those in need,” he added.

The store, located on Syghanaq Street 15, is open daily from 9 a.m.-7 p.m. and closed on Mon-days.

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Schools to bring in electronic books in September

By Assel Satubaldina

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakh schools are moving closer to dig-itisation, as schoolchildren will have the opportunity to study with electronic books starting Sept. 1, the beginning of the school year.

“Parents and children can down-load the books at the website of the ministry,” said Minister of Education and Science Askhat Ait-magambetov at an Aug. 13 gov-ernment meeting.

The decision whether to use electronic or print textbooks rests with the children and their parents.

“It is important to understand one thing here – print textbooks will remain. All children should have them, but another thing that the ministry is saying this year is that it is the choice of parents,” he said.

Aitmagambetov also addressed concerns that schools can prohibit using e-books.

“In the instructive and meth-odological letter, we explained this in detail. If the children, their parents or representatives want to use them, then no one should say that it is not allowed. He or she can come with either a tablet, elec-tronic book or laptop. This is their personal choice and we give the opportunity,” he added.

More than three million children will attend school this year, includ-ing 405,000 first graders. The fig-

ure is 20,000 higher than the pre-vious year, the result of the recent law that obligates children to go to school at age six.

The ministry is monitoring print textbook delivery to schools na-tionwide. Aitmagambetov noted 47 percent of the books have been shipped and the rest will be in schools by opening day.

Fourth, ninth and tenth grad-ers will study the revised curricu-lum, part of Kazakhstan’s effort to steadily transition to a 12-year school system.

Forty-four percent of Kazakh schools were built before 1980, said Aitmagambetov. Renovations were completed this year on 6,678 buildings; major overhauls have been finished at 129 schools and are ongoing at 194.

The state budget is also financing construction of 115 new schools, 57 of which will be commissioned this year.

Aitmagambetov noted work has begun to introduce per capita normative financing in private schools, defined by law as the “standard of financial support of guaranteed state tuition fees at all education levels.”

“Before the introduction of per capita financing norm, there were 121 private schools and, to date, there are 146. Since January, the national budget has envisioned the funds to place procurement orders in all private schools in the coun-try,” he said.

Almaty-based institute introduces advances in diagnosing heart condition

By Diana Vassilenko

NUR-SULTAN – Almaty-based Scientific Research Institute of Cardiology and Internal Diseases made two major advances in heart disease diagnostics and manage-ment in July. Its scholars improved the standards for the management of patients with chronic heart fail-ure using modern telecommunica-tion systems, and introduced a new method to diagnose heart ischemia (a restriction in blood supply to tis-sues, causing a shortage of oxygen necessary to keep tissue alive) in just two-three minutes and with an almost 100 percent accuracy.

“The new heart ischemia diagnos-tic method is a deeper physiological study. Previously, we used non-invasive diagnostic methods, that is, we thoroughly interviewed the patient, analysed his heart rate data detected by a cardiogram attached to the patient running on a tread-mill, and only then we managed to detect ischemia. We must know for sure, because these coronary ves-sel constrictions of 50-70 percent, sometimes even 80 percent, should not always be treated with interven-tional methods, because there are so many possibilities of treatment using drug therapy,” said Alexey Kolesnikov, head of the department at the institute, as reported by 24.kz.

The new diagnostic technol-ogy, introduced at the institute, is known around the world as the

“gold standard.” Unlike other di-agnostic methods, this technology is safer and can reduce the number of postoperative complications. An ultra-thin conductor with a sensor at the end is inserted into the coronary vessels. In places of constrictions, the device measures the amount of incoming blood to the heart. Doctors can treat the disease with medication, if the pa-rameters are sufficient. In case of a blood shortage, an expansion stent is placed in the vessels.

The Scientific Research Insti-tute of Cardiology and Internal Diseases have also improved the standards for the management of

patients with chronic heart failure using modern telecommunication systems. With the development of information and telecommuni-cation technologies, which led to the birth of a fundamentally new medical service, Kazakh doctors are now able to use a remote pa-tient monitoring system.

Head of the Department of Ar-rhythmology Roin Rekvava con-nected a patient with an implanted Cardiac Resynchronisation Ther-apy (CRT) Device to the Home Monitoring remote monitoring system. This is a home monitoring system, a small device that is simi-lar in size and shape to a smart-

phone, which sends clinical and technical data daily from the im-planted device to the doctor’s per-sonal account. In case of unfore-seen clinical complications, Home Monitoring will notify the doctor of the necessity to contact the pa-tient to adjust the drug therapy or to configure the device settings.

According to many studies, Home Monitoring provides early diagnosis of arrhythmias (quiver-ing or irregular heartbeat), is an ef-fective tool for the early prevention of strokes caused by atrial fibrilla-tion. It also reduces the frequency of device replacement operations caused by battery depletion.

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An international spirit and the global network of young and am-bitious leaders are among the dis-tinct features the conference offers to its delegates.

“With the Asia conference, trav-elling from a different Asian uni-versity to another one each sum-mer, we really have the unique opportunity to target different regions of Asia and that is one of the most significant aspects of this year’s conference. So HPAIR has the unique distinguishing factor of being able to switch our location every summer and for a lot of our attendees and speakers and spon-sors, that is the asset they cannot find with any other international conference of our peers,” said Mi-chael.

HPAIR is also an opportunity for Kazakhstan to raise its interna-tional profile.

“I think it is important for our students, but also beyond that, it is important we invite the world here. It is important to get Kazakh-stan, Nur-Sultan city, Nazarbayev University known to the world and I think it is this type of events and conferences that are help-ing in spreading the word,” said Nazarbayev University President Shigeo Katsu.

The participants discussed glob-al markets and economy, art, me-dia and culture, social policy and social justice, energy and environ-mental sustainability, governance and geopolitics, science and tech-nology.

“As you can imagine, during the short span of conference, it is im-possible to discuss all of the con-tent that is relevant to our world today. So, by having two different conferences over the years, we are able to target a wider range of speakers, and that’s offer a wider

range of content to those who at-tend our conference,” said Mi-chael.

The speakers included well-known figures in politics, busi-ness and academia, such as UNICEF Korea President Dr. Song Sang-hyon, former Indian Foreign Minister Nirupama Rao, former Head of Standard Char-tered Bank’s Global Markets for the Middle East and North Africa Daniel Azzi, Nobel Peace Prize winner Rae Kwon Chung, among others.

The highlight of the programme was the Impact Challenge, a case competition, where leading com-panies, such as the Boston Con-sulting Group, Deloitte, the Astana International Financial Centre and the Eurasian Resources Group, tasked the delegates to formulate solutions to the problems facing the Central Asian region and the world.

Nur-Sultan’s first free social store revives Kazakh tradition of mutual help, support

Nazarbayev University hosts Harvard University’s largest student-run conference in Asia

“Recently, we had to unfortunately make a new temporary regulation – all visitors have to donate 500 tenge (US$1.30) for the operation of the 200-square-metre store, which requires 900,000 tenge (US$2,325) a month. This includes rent and administrative expenses.”

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019

NATION&CAPITALB6

TOURISM

Budget-friendly summer trip to Burabay – capital’s favourite retreatBy Diana Vassilenko

NUR-SULTAN – Burabay is the most popular getaway for capital citizens and one of the most pictur-esque, budget-friendly and enter-tainment-filled mountain resorts in Central Asia.

Burabay can be accessed by train from the Nur-Sultan 1 or Astana Nurly Zhol railway stations. The trip to Burabay takes two to four hours and the cost varies according to the type of seat, carriage and train speed and schedule. Prices range from 775-8,969 tenge (US$2-23.14), with the typical cost approximately $4. Tickets can be purchased at the railway station or from any travel agency or online at tickets.kz for an additional fee. A car ride will take approximately three hours and the Nur-Sultan – Shchuchinsk highway toll is 200 tenge (US$0.52).

Upon arriving at the Shchuchinsk station, visitors take a 200 tenge (US$0.52) fare shuttle bus which goes to the resort area. Guests can also take a taxi to their desired des-tination, with prices starting at 300 tenge (US$0.77) per person.

Accommodations can be found along Kenessary Street, the main road in the Burabay town.

“Whenever we go to Burabay, we stay at a wooden lodge at Aunt Raya’s or in the lodge at 5a Ozy-ornaya Street. Both places are very simple but clean and even though some amenities, including the bath-rooms, are shared, for 3,000 tenge (US$7.74) a night per person, the

conditions are very nice. There is a charm in the simplicity,” said Diana Timoshenko, a student from the capital, who travels to Burabay with her family several times a year.

For those who want to be even closer to nature, camping is an op-tion. The ever-growing industry of-fers areas around each of the Bura-bay-area lakes. Tourists can bring their own tents and pay a camping

spot fee or rent the necessary equip-ment.

Most visitors buy food at Be-reke, the open market on Kenes-sary Street, which offers local specialities such as hot-smoked peled fish, crayfish and sea buck-thorn juice. Baked goods like cakes and pastries, corn on the cob and local ice cream are also offered for sale. Meal prices at lo-

cal eateries vary widely, but are reasonably priced.

Guided mountain climbing and lake tours can be purchased to view the local scenery, but most visitors prefer self-guided tours, which they consider more authentic and inter-esting.

Cycling is the most popular means of summer transport. Bikes can be rented anywhere in the re-

sort for an hourly or daily rate of 500 tenge (US$1.29) and 2,000 tenge (US$5.16), respectively.

In July, the area launched Swiss Trails in Burabay, implemented by Kazakh Tourism and Burabay Damu in cooperation with Swit-zerland Tourism. The project is a well-equipped mountain route with a high level of service and care for the environment. Guests may take walks with a professional multilin-gual guide or hike independently and read the informational signs. Tourists can also cycle along the convenient wooden tracks within the mountain woods and along Burabay Lake.

Public and private beaches require a 500 tenge (US$1.29) entrance fee. Boats or pedal catamarans are available to rent for approximately 4,000 tenge (US$10.32) per hour.

Burabay provides plenty of enter-tainment for children. Some beach-es have inflatable water parks and the newly-opened dolphinarium gives youngsters a chance to watch an entertaining show or swim with the aquatic mammals. Ticket prices for the latter range from 2,000-5,000 tenge (US$5.16-12.90).

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From the top of the dune, one can see the stunning views of the Ile Valley to the south and blue-purple ridges of the Jongar Ala-tau to the north. Tourists can slide down from the crest and listen to the mystical sounds.

During dry weather, the dune makes a variety of organ-like

sounds when the sand grains rub against each other, electrify and vibrate. The more sand moves, the greater the friction and louder the tones.

Although the sounds’ origins have recently been explained sci-entifically, several legends still ex-ist. According to some tales, the sound comes from a huge dragon sleeping and snoring under the

dune or desert spirits hiding within it. The most widespread and oldest legend says the dune is a sleeping devil turned into sand for his sins. When wind or people disturb his dream, he groans.

Travellers can reach Akkum Kalkan using tourism agencies, which have weekend tours with a guide to Altyn Emel National Park, or drive the approximately

300 kilometres from Almaty them-selves.

Choosing the latter option, one should use the Almaty-Kapshagai Highway through Kapshagai, Shengeldy village and the Arkhar-ly mountain pass to Sary-Ozek. A right turn along the road ring to Zharkent, passing the Altyn Emel mountain pass and turning off the highway to the right to Basshi vil-lage, takes the driver to the park’s central manor.

Permits are required to enter the national park territory, which can be purchased in its Almaty office or central manor in Basshi. Tour-ism agencies can also assist in pro-curing them.

An escort is also important in Altyn Emel, as the territory is huge, making it easy to get lost or to be mistaken for poachers. The guide can talk about and show many interesting things that tourists might not notice along the way, which is also an advantage.Ph

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Ecological tourism planned for Charyn, Ile-Alatau and Kolsai Lakes national parks

By Zhanna Shayakhmetova

NUR-SULTAN – The Kazakh Ministry of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources and Ministry of Culture and Sports are plan-ning ecological tourism projects in Charyn, Ile-Alatau and Kolsai Lakes national parks.

The programme will increase the annual tourist flow from 1.3 million to 3.4 million by 2025 and ensure the quality of services provided, the Ministry of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources press service reported Aug. 14.

“National parks have the great potential for the development of ecological tourism. These are spe-cially protected natural areas. The task is set to protect the ecosys-tems in the parks and to monitor their conservation zones for envi-ronmental, educational, scientific, tourist, recreational and limited economic purposes,” said Minister of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources Magzum Mirzagaliev.

The ministries will launch the pilot project in an effort to intro-duce a new management model us-ing best world practices to develop sustainable tourism.

“The tourism in national parks to-day is not well-developed. It is char-acterised by poor service, lack of infrastructure, inability to promote unique natural sites as the brand of a national park, lack of professional

personnel in the field of tourism and other issues. We plan to develop sustainable ecological tourism with the Kazakh Tourism company to test a new management model in three national parks,” he added.

The new model will create ap-proximately 20,000 jobs and at-tract about 100 billion tenge (US$258 million) in investment in the next five-seven years.

“This will happen due to diver-sification of tourism products. To-day, as a rule, people visit the parks for a short overnight stay. There are a limited number of equipped

routes and viewing platforms in the national parks. Now, we will improve the infrastructure,” said Kazakh Tourism Board Deputy Chairperson Kairat Sadvakassov.

The plans will be reviewed. While previous plans focused mainly on biodiversity and envi-ronmental conservation, interna-tional experience proves it is pos-sible to save the environment and increase the number of tourists.

The project is expected to imple-ment and promote innovative ide-as, programmes and technologies aimed at developing high-quality

tourism infrastructure, taking into account the interests of preserv-ing the existing ecosystem. Inter-national experts and organisations will be invited to execute best practices.

Kazakh national parks are part of the specially protected natu-ral areas regulated by law. There is a special regime that ensures conserving the natural resources, complexes and objects of the state nature reserve fund. Conducting the pilot projects will make it pos-sible to apply the experience to the 13 national natural parks.

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FlyArystan to increase number of flights out

of Karaganda in 2020By Yerbolat Uatkhanov

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakhstan’s first low-cost airline FlyArys-tan will expand the number of its flights out of the Sary-Arka Air-port in Karaganda in the second quarter of 2020.

The additional flights out of Ka-zakhstan’s fourth largest city will include 10 to 12 domestic and na-tional routes and are expected to help develop tourism in the region. The expansion follows the success of recently launched flights from Almaty to Karaganda.

“The results of the first three months of operations to Karaganda are very exciting with 49 percent traffic growth versus the same pe-riod last year, following the start of FlyArystan flights to Karaganda,” said Air Astana Chief Financial Officer Ibrahim Canliel.

“Starting from the second quar-ter of 2020, we are planning sig-nificant network expansion from Karaganda. After increasing our Karaganda base fleet to two Air-bus A320 aircraft, the number of domestic and international routes served from Karaganda will reach approximately 10-12, providing passengers with up to one million seats per year. This will provide affordable mobility, increase both the tourist and business flows to the region and will positively im-pact the development of the hos-pitality industry of Karaganda, including hotel, restaurant, retail, entertainment and virtually all oth-er services,” said Canliel.

FlyArystan is a subsidiary of Air Astana.

The additional flights will begin with one A320 aircraft. A second A320 will be added in late 2020 or early 2021.

FlyArystan started service to Karaganda with daily service to Almaty on May 2. More than 200 flights have been completed since the route was launched, and the flights have been 93 percent filled. Approximately half of all seats on this route were sold for less than 10,000 tenge (US$25). Prices started from 5,999 tenge (US$15).

FlyArystan will be recruiting up to 120 pilots, engineers, inflight and ground service employees in Karaganda.

“Critically, more routes and more seats mean more low fares and travelling options for the peo-ple of the Karaganda region. That is great news for the region, and we hope that other cities follow the proactive lead of Karaganda airport management in working closely with FlyArystan,” Canliel said.

Sary-Arka Airport Chairman Sarsenbek Kushkinov said flying FlyArystan aircraft out of Sary-Arka airport will help the airline manage costs.

“Our partnership follows inter-national practice when low-cost airlines opt for regional airports to ensure competitive prices for air travel. Karaganda has unique weather conditions in terms of vis-ibility and other key flight factors at any time of the year and has all necessary infrastructure for both a comfortable stay and timely ser-vice with planned double growth in passenger traffic next year,” he said.

Akkum Kalkan singing dune fascinates tourists with mystic sounds, legends

Smoked and salted fish is among the most popular treats for locals and tourists.Visitors can rent catamarans to tour Burabay’s lakes at affordable prices.

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Bibisara Assaubayeva takes third place at Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival Masters

By Saltanat Boteu

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakh chess player Bibisara Assaubayeva took third place among women at the Aug. 2-11 Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival Masters. The tour-nament attracted 150 participants from around the world.

Assaubayeva once again ful-filled the norm of a female grand-master, scoring five points in nine rounds with four victories and two draws.

“At the Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival Masters, I played nine games in the Swiss system. The most difficult and therefore memorable was the game with 17-year-old Indian grandmaster

Panneerselvam Iniyan with a rat-ing of 2,517. Iniyan is young, strong and aggressive; he was de-termined to win and therefore es-pecially dangerous… In the end of the five-hour standoff I managed to win, creating a direct threat to (his) king,” Assaubayeva told bnews.kz.

She noted playing against men is not easy and provides good experi-ence for her future career.

“Men are stronger than women – this is nature, the world is cre-ated [that way] and sport is a re-flection of this world. In boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, athletics, swimming, football and hockey, men are stronger and their results are much higher than women’s results. After all, Canelo Alvarez is stronger than Laila Ali and Mi-

chael Phelps is faster than Tracy Stockwell, right? This axiom is true for any sport and chess is no exception. My rivals were men, four of whom have the title of grandmaster and one international master. Playing with them, prob-ably the main thing that I learned for myself is experience and perse-verance,” she added.

Assaubayeva mastered the first rules of chess by age four. She is the youngest-ever World Chess Federation (FIDE) Master, receiv-ing the title at seven, and counts five world championships among her awards.

“In my free time I like to read, do gymnastics and try to sleep. The latter is often not enough. I surely pay attention to my family on the weekend. I love walking with my little sister,” she said.

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Kazakh boy visits UEFA 2019 Football Super Cup, presents prize to Liverpool

By Saltanat Boteu

NUR-SULTAN – Ali Turganbe-kov, the young boy born without legs known as ‘Kazakh Vujicic,’ recently joined Union of Europe-an Football Associations (UEFA) President Aleksander Čeferin to present the UEFA Super Cup to winner Liverpool Football Club (FC).

“Friends, I was invited to the UEFA Super Cup 2019, in which the winners of the Champions League and Europa League of the last season will meet. Liverpool-Chelsea match! To say that I am

extremely happy means to say nothing. I am so delighted; I do not know how to convey my feelings of joy and happiness. I am grate-ful to the leadership of UEFA, the UEFA Foundation and of course to Kairat Sovetayevich. It was he who organised this wonderful event for me, giving me many un-forgettable emotions,” Tuganbe-kov wrote on his Instagram page referring to Kairat Boranbayev, President of the Kazakh National Paralympic Committee.

His mother, Akmaral Amireyeva said that one of her son’s most im-portant wishes came true.

“Ali has one goal – he wants to

motivate children with disabilities to sports, to activity; he wants to be the ambassador of this organisation. These are his first steps towards this goal,” she told bnews.kz.

Turganbekov plays football and swims. He studies at the Nurorda School in the capital with his brother, Amir, who helps and sup-ports him in his daily routine.

“A telecast about us was made on television. The kind-hearted wife of a high-ranking official came to us through it and helped us to enter the Nurorda School. So far, there is no limit to my joy. I ex-press my deep gratitude to all the people who participated in this…

All these people opened the most important path in my son’s life,” Amireyeva told inform.kz about her family’s struggle in finding the correct school for her son.

Turganbekov met his idol, mo-tivational speaker Nick Vujicic, in Almaty in December 2017 and Argentine professional footballer Diego Maradona five months lat-er. In November, he travelled to a private training session of the Paris Saint-Germain FC, meeting players Edinson Cavani, Kylian Mbappé and Neymar. He recently was introduced to Ukraine’s An-driy Shevchenko and Argentine’s Lionel Messi and visited Chelsea

and Liverpool closed training ses-sions before the Super Cup match.

Following the match, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev wrote on

his Twitter page: “Ali, your will and determination inspire many people around the world. Let all your dreams come true!”

Aleksander Čeferin and Ali Turganbekov present the Super Cup to Liverpool FC.

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Boxer retains middleweight belts after win in Los Angeles

By Nazira Kozhanova

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakh pro-fessional middleweight boxer Zhanibek Alimkhanuly retained his WBO Global and WBO Con-tinental Americas titles after de-feating Canadian Stuart McLellan Aug. 17 in Los Angeles, reports Olympic.kz.

Alimkhanuly now ranks 63rd in the BoxRec middleweight box-ers global ranking. He currently is in third place among the Kazakh middleweight boxers according to this ranking, following Gennady Golovkin (2nd place) and Kanat Islam (32rd place).

“Training camp was wonderful. My coach Buddy McGirt prepared me very well, in the spirit of the old school. We had excellent spar-ring and went to the match 100 percent ready. I have been in the United States for a year now and have become stronger. I want to win all the middleweight belts. Who would I like to fight with? There are a lot of good fighters in the middleweight: Canelo, An-drade, Charlo… I am ready and want to fight the top boxers,” said

Alimkhanuly after the fight, re-ports the Top Rank website.

Alimkhanuly originally gained the titles after defeating Cristian Ol-ivas in April. Alimkhanuly defeated McLellan by technical knockout in the fifth round at the Bank of Cali-fornia Los Angeles stadium.

In the second round, Alimkhan-uly knocked down his opponent. Alimkhanuly knocked McLellan down again in the fifth round. Al-imkhanuly tried to continue but the referee stopped the match.

The win was Alimkhanuly’s sev-enth out of seven fights in his pro-fessional career. Alimkhanuly also had a successful amateur career,

winning the 2013 World Boxing Championship.

The fight between Alimkhanuly and McLellan received additional attention from the media with McLellan posting a picture of Al-imkhanuly as a Sacha Baron Co-hen’s Borat character on his Ins-tagram page. Later McLellan also posted an apology, reports the Ca-nadian Boxiana website.

“I apologise to the Kazakhstan fans. I did not know they took such offence to Borat. I sincerely apolo-gise to you. I merely wanted to of-fend my opponent not the entire country,” wrote McLellan on his Facebook page.

Nur-Sultan to host 2019 Senior Wrestling World Championships, winners to qualify

for Tokyo 2020 Olympic GamesBy Dilshat Zhussupova

NUR-SULTAN – Athletes from around the world will compete in the 2019 Senior Wrestling World Championships at the capital’s Barys Arena Sept. 14-22, reports United World Wrestling.

Senior wrestling is the term for a competitive category that includes men’s Greco-Roman wrestling and women’s and men’s freestyle wrestling. It does not refer to the age of the competitors.

The 2019 World Champion-ships will be the first qualification event for the Tokyo 2020 Sum-mer Olympic Games. The top six finishers in each Olympic weight category will secure an Olympic qualification for their country. The remaining qualification spots will be decided at continental competi-tions and a Last Chance Qualifier.

The world championships will start with Greco-Roman wres-tling, move to women’s wrestling and conclude with freestyle. The 97-kilogramme final “could fea-ture a third straight finals appear-ance by the sport’s biggest rivals, Abdulrashid Sadulaev (RUS) and

Kyle Snyder (USA),” reported Unitedworldwrestling.org.

The world championships are also an opportunity for up-and-coming wrestlers to make a name for themselves.

“As for Kazakh wrestlers who may surprise (at the 2019 World Championships), 20-year-old Nurkozha Kaipanov, competing in the weight category of up to 70 kilogrammes, won this year’s Championship of Kazakhstan and became the youngest Asian Wres-tling Championships winner in the history of the country. He has his own style of wrestling,” said Ka-zakh Academy of Wrestling Coach Eduard Bazrov to Kazwrestling.kz.

The event will be the first Senior World Championships held in Ka-zakhstan. Nur-Sultan will become the 10th city to host the world championships in Greco-Roman, women’s and freestyle wrestling, for which there were separate world championships until 2005. The city also previously hosted the 2014 Senior Asian Wrestling Championships, the 2016 Asian Olympic Qualifier and the 2018 Grappling World Championships.

“We were very pleased with the presentation put on by the Organ-ising Committee from the city of Astana (now Nur-Sultan),” said United World Wrestling President Nenad Lalovic, upon announcing Nur-Sultan as the host city for the world championships in 2018. “I have every confidence that Astana will deliver an excellent event for our athletes, coaches and fans.”

The event’s organisers are Unit-ed World Wrestling, the Kazakh Ministry of Culture and Sports, the National Olympic Committee, the Kazakh Confederation of Martial Arts and Power Sports and the Ka-zakh Federation of Greco-Roman, Freestyle and Women’s Wrestling.

“The Wrestling World Champi-onships are a major event and will help popularise wrestling in Ka-zakhstan,” said Kazakhstan Wres-tling Federation President Sauat Mynbayev. “We are excited to host the championships in Astana (Nur-Sultan) and are confident that they will be remembered as one of the best sporting events and receive positive feedback from fans.”

Tickets can be purchased at www.kassir.kz, www.ticketon.kz and www.zakazbiletov.kz.

Climber completes Tokyo 2020 participation standard at

Climbing World ChampionshipsBy Saltanat Boteu

NUR-SULTAN – Kazakh sport climber Rishat Khaibullin has ful-filled the participation standard for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, receiving a quota at the Aug. 11-21 Climbing World Championships in Hachioji, Japan.

Eighty-three athletes from 39 countries participated in the quali-fication. The top 20, including Khaibullin, who ranked 14th, were involved in the qualification con-test, reported olympic.kz.

Four Japanese athletes made it to the final eight in all-around, mean-ing Khaibullin is guaranteed to ful-fil the qualification standard, since only two athletes from any country may compete in the Games. Ac-cording to the championships’ re-sults, the seven best athletes will receive 2020 licenses.

In the speed discipline, Khai-bullin set a new Kazakh record of 5.863 seconds, which gave him the lead. He ranked 17th and 16th, re-spectively, in bouldering and lead climbing.

“Seven quotas were played at the World Championship. One could be obtained at the continental championship. There will also be a licensed tournament in December. I was sure that Rishat could get

into the top 20 in all-around, who raffled participation in the Olym-pic Games among themselves… After analysing the composition of those who went on, we realised that Rishat had a chance to meet the standard – there were representa-tives of only eight countries among the top 20… He scored enough points to get into the top eight and reach the final,” said Kazakh team head coach Saule Yskakova.

In addition to the World Cham-pionships, Kazakh athletes will have the chance to fulfil the Olym-

pic standard at the Asian Champi-onships in November in Indonesia.

To date, Kazakh athletes have 11 licenses for Tokyo 2020. In addition to Khaibullin, swimmer Dmitry Ba-landin; track and field athlete Olga Rypakova; racewalker Georgy Sheiko; professional racing cyclist Yevgeniy Gidich; the men’s classic archery team, whose members Ilfat Abdullin, Denis Gankin, and Sanjar Musaev will also perform in per-sonal competitions, and marathon swimmer Vitaliy Khudyakov have met Olympic standards.

Rishat Khaibullin

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“My rivals were men, four of whom have the title of grandmaster and one international master. Playing with them, probably the main thing that I learned for myself is experience and perseverance. ”

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Nur-Sultan launches new website to receive input from city residents

By Dilshat Zhussupova

NUR-SULTAN – Information technology company BTS Digi-tal and Nur-Sultan’s 24-hour city call centre iKOMEK109 recently launched an online platform to re-ceive feedback from city residents, reports the city akimat (adminis-tration).

People may submit inquiries on the akimat’s services and ac-tivities, housing and public utili-ties, capital house maintenance firms (KSK), public transport, road repairs, flooding, employ-ment, education and healthcare to the website aitu.city. Applica-tions may be submitted by filling

out the website’s inquiry form and attaching a photograph. The submission will be processed by iKOMEK109 and published on the website’s list of inquiries, with status updates sent by email notification.

Inquiries processed by iKOMEK109 are, if necessary, further transferred to state bodies and public utility services. The ap-propriate authorities then respond to the centre regarding the inquiry within seven days, and the per-son who submitted the inquiry is promptly notified.

Earlier, only the people who sub-mitted a given inquiry were able to access it and its status, whereas now everyone has access to all

online inquiries and their status on aitu.city. The inquiries may also be shared on social media to raise awareness of problems in the city so that they may be more quickly resolved.

Aitu.city is unique to Kazakh-stan and may launch in other cities in the near future. It was developed by BTS Digital and iKOMEK109 by taking into account best inter-national practices.

BTS Digital develops digital products and services in Kazakh-stan using artificial intelligence and big data. iKOMEK109 offers more than 1,050 types of services through its call centre, such as advising on school and kinder-garten enrolment, filing capital

KSK complaints and transfer-ring emergency calls. Common inquiries concern street flood-ing, road and pavement damage, elevator maintenance and repair, open manhole covers and stray dog capture. The centre received more than one million calls in 2018 and more than 920,000 calls since January.

People may also communi-cate their inquiries about the city through the website www.astana.gov.kz, Telegram chatbot @asta-naikomek109_bot, mobile appli-cations iKOMEK109 and Smart Astana, email address 109@ikomekastana.kz, WhatsApp phone number +7 747 1090109 and toll-free phone number 109.

Large-scale book festival invites readers to one-day

literature events

By Saltanat Boteu

NUR-SULTAN – The 2019 Ki-tap (book) Fest, an annual event organised in Almaty during the past five years, will be held for the first time 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Aug. 25 at the capital’s Arbat near the Yesil River. The festival included a BookCrossing, meetings with writers, journalists and public fig-ures, photo exhibition, book fair and children’s entertainment.

The event is organised by the Baurzhan Foundation and ABAY-books publishing house with sup-port from the capital akimat’s (city administration) Astana Jastary, reported elorda.info.

The festival seeks to develop a reading culture, create a single platform for writers and their readers and increase interest in books among children and youth.

The programme included an Ibookyou BookCrossing; writers’ tent with local authors present-ing their books published in the last two years; book offline tent, where participants may become acquainted with public figures, journalists, opinion leaders and entrepreneurs; book fair, with publishing houses and online stores presenting their products, and an archival photographs’ ex-hibition featuring rare photos of early 20th-century writers and readers.

Invited guest speakers includ-

ed pianist and People’s Artist of Kazakhstan Zhania Aubakirova; honoured journalist, Doctor of Philosophy and researcher Zira Nauryzbayeva; “Tomiris” his-torical film star Almira Tursyn; journalist and children’s fairy tale author Guljazira Berіkkyzy and director and screenwriter Aidiye Aidarbekov.

“This Sunday, I will be in my beloved capital again, telling how I managed to write a book be-fore the age of 20… how to write scripts for comics and films and how scripting differs from books. And, of course, (speak) about books, a lot,” Aidarbekov wrote on his Facebook page.

The participants also hd the chance to meet bloggers Aina Dosmukhambetkyzy and Orken Kenzhebek, Jeff Tailor men’s suits studio owner Gaukhar Utel-bayeva and I Book You project founder Marina Sharipova.

In the last five years, the fes-tival has evolved from a mod-est book exchange to a cultural and educational event that has won the public’s recognition and love, bringing together thousands of book lovers, writ-ers, bloggers, public figures and opinion leaders. Authors and publishers presented more than 130 books and gave away approximately 20,000 to par-ticipants. The book fair gathered more than 70 bookstores and 45 bloggers presented their favour-ite books.

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New theatre sets new standard with trilingual performances

By Diana Vassilenko

NUR-SULTAN – The unique contemporary theatre Astanalyq Zamanaui Teatr (AZT) recently opened its doors to the public in the House of Friendship in Nur-Sultan with the support of the capital’s Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan. The new art centre opened with the premiere of a cre-ative take on Shakespeare’s plays called “Shakespeare’s Dream.”

What makes the new contempo-rary theatre unique is that all plays are performed in three languages. According to the stage actors, this is the first theatre to hold perfor-mances in that format. The theatre

cast comprises 15 young actors who work under the supervision of The-atre Director Zhekebatyr Kamen, Stage Director Ayan Alimbayev and Artistic Director Sabyr Batyrkhan.

The names of the actors are Alibek Yerikov, Askhat Baitleu, Ayaulym Muminova, Ayan Batyr-bek, Ayzharkyn Abai, Darkhan Aldongarov, Madiyar Zhakyp, Margulan Namenov, Nurgazy Zhumabai, Rasul Yernazarov, Sa-bira Sugurova, Ulzhan Kalamishe-va, reports astana.gov.kz.

The directors and the actors are laureates of international and na-tional competitions. The actors speak Russian, Kazakh and Eng-lish.

The House of Friendship was

opened last year on the initiative of Kazakhstan’s First President, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

“The most important thing is for people to come here, to remem-ber their history, their culture, and maybe even their language. So that everyone feels comfortable, there is this place where people can meet up, reminisce and talk to each oth-er. That is why I congratulate you,” said Nazarbayev on the day of the opening of the centre dedicated to friendship between nations.

The purpose of the centre is be-ing fulfilled, as the trilingual per-formances will gather people of different cultures and enable them to mingle.

The premiere of Shakespeare’s

Dream attracted many visitors. Both critics and the audience thought highly of the first perfor-mance. During the one-hour-and-a-half play, the performers sang and danced, and the audience laughed and cried.

Head of the Secretariat of the Assembly of the People of Ka-zakhstan Lyazzat Kusainova, di-rector of Nur-Sultan akimat’s (city administration) Qogamdyk Keli-simi (Public Accord) institution Nuraly Aidashev, Vice-Rector for Educational Work at the Kazakh National University of the Arts (KazNUA) Kimbat Tleuova, Ka-zakh State Academic Music and Drama Theatre actress Ainur Ber-muhambetova and teachers from KazNUA congratulated the young performers on their success.

Tleuova said that now, during the Year of Youth, it should be the priority of Kazakh people to sup-port the young generations.

“Our main goal is supporting our youth. The capital’s new con-temporary theatre will become one of our country’s main attractions. We are happy that you have aspira-tions,” said Tleuova to the theatre team after their performance.

The AZT theatre troupe actors expressed their hope to make their theatre one of Kazakhstan’s lead-ing theatres.

The theatre team has already begun preparatory work to stage Rakhimzhan Otarbayev’s drama “Novella of a Drug Addict” and Mukhtar Auezov’s tragic drama “Enlik Kebek.”A snippet of Shakespeare’s Dream.

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Emoji Café gives Kazakhs with hearing loss opportunity to thriveBy Diana Vassilenko

NUR-SULTAN – Emoji Café, which only employs individuals with hearing difficulties, is the idea of Azamat Bazylov. An an-aesthesiologist-resuscitator at Nur-Sultan Oncology Centre, he sold his house in the country and took a loan to start the social project.

“I was once listening to the ra-dio and heard the famous proverb ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a life-time.’ Soon afterwards, I attended a business training of social en-trepreneur Emin Askerov, whose project GreenTAL gave work to many people with disabilities. I was deeply moved and decided to also open a business that would be helpful to the disadvantaged,” he said.

Bazylov wanted to offer the op-portunity to those with hearing difficulties to lead a normal life with a normal job. The café, which opened more than a month ago, employs 16 people – three from the capital and others from Ak-tobe, Almaty and Petropavlovsk. Four job openings are available.

“I chose to focus on people with hearing loss because my own cousin is deaf. We were brought up together by our grandmother,

but he was the one who made me the way I am today. Few deaf people ever get a job and, if they do, the work they have to do is very harsh. My cousin’s kidneys

failed due to the work he had and now he is nearly bound to the hospital bed receiving haemodi-alysis (artificial blood purifica-tion),” he said.

Bazylov ensures each employee receives proper training before starting his/her job. A professional barista is teaching the soon-to-be barista all the tips to making great

coffee. His family is also very supportive. His siblings help with managing administrative issues, while his mother teaches baking skills to the kitchen staff.

“Going to the café is akin to be-ing in a foreign country; you point to the menu items you want and try to explain yourself in gestures. In fact, that is why I called this place Emoji. With emojis, you can ex-press your thoughts without using a single word,” he said.

The café has an extensive menu. The staff is given the freedom to prepare a variety of dishes to de-cide what kind of food they like making the most. Currently, they serve both European and Kazakh dishes and make cakes to order. Pizza is an especially popular item.

“When I looked at the café from the outside, the bright sign ‘Smile! Special people are serving you’ instantly grabbed my attention. In-deed, I found it hard not to smile and feel proud that there are people in our country who work towards making our society more inclu-sive, who give others the chance to be happy,” said a visitor.

Emoji, with a 120-person ca-pacity, is a popular place among locals. The café regularly caters banquets with a 60-guest limit.

“People with hearing loss are also common visitors; they are

happy they can be at ease in the café. In fact, one of the regular customers with hearing difficulties eventually started being one of our employees,” said Bazylov.

The prices are low, as the own-er said he wanted to make sure that anyone can come to the café and feel comfortable. Lunch sets, for instance, are only 800 tenge (US$2).

“I am planning to eventually change the design of the place. Some visitors complain it does not match the name or theme of the project. I have other plans for the café, too. I am looking out for sponsors and asking people to help, but currently no one is respond-ing. You see, I would like to inte-grate electronic menus to enable smooth communication between the staff and the customers and I would also like to add buttons to the tables that would be connected to vibrating bracelets to indicate which table requires service. I re-ally hope someone will eventually respond and provide support,” said Bazylov.

He plans to open a second café closer to the city business centre when the first location is profitable and, eventually, similar eateries around the country.

“People with hearing difficulties are in need of a job not only in the capital,” he said.

Café owner Azamat Bazylov in checkered shirt with the staff.

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