Kazakhstan sees 25% increase in number of individual entrepreneurs in 2022

The number of individual entrepreneurs has sharply increased in Kazakhstan, a quarter more than last year. As of November 1, small business entities in the country has totaled 1.5 million, which is the highest figure in recent years, the Bureau of National Statistics reports. Domestic entrepreneurs are mainly engaged in trade and automotive repair. Their number went up 40 percent in a year. Along with them, entrepreneurs do their businesses in three more key industries, such as agriculture, fisheries and real estate. Over the year, their number has also noticeably increased in the sectors of public administration, defense and compulsory social security.

“Our experts attribute this excessive interest to the lowering of the value added tax threshold. The government is doing a lot to improve the business climate, business running in Kazakhstan. From January 1, the VAT registration threshold was also lowered from 30,000 MCI to 20,000. That is about 61,000 tenge. We have a lot of programs, including an entrepreneurship development project. All this is made to develop businesses, primarily small and medium-sized ones. There is the concept of SMEs development until 2030, all these measures, both financial and non-financial, of course, will give a boost,” assured Nurlan Sakuov, Executive Secretary of the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs.

It’s worth pointing out that most of entrepreneurs work in Almaty. Among top three leaders are also the Turkistan region and Astana. The lowest numbers of small businesses are registered in the Ulytau, North Kazakhstan and Pavlodar regions.

“Needless to say, the newly created regions have low figures. The Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs has already mentioned this. In general, each region has its own economic priorities. These are the areas that are most attractive for business running. Here Atameken proposes to focus on regional programs with local authorities, to create the regional programs that will genuinely help developing priority sectors,” Sakuov added.