President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, during a meeting with business representatives, spoke about the monopolisation of business and public depression in Kazakhstan.
“At one of the meetings of the Supreme Economic Council for Reforms, I already said that there is an oligopoly in our country. I repeated the same thesis on January 11 in Parliament. I hope everyone present here knows the classic definition of oligopoly. The colossal concentration of business in one hand and the simultaneous inability of other people capable of entrepreneurship to engage in it is a most dangerous trend for all states. In our case, this manifested itself with particular force," Tokayev said.
The head of state noted that oligopoly is a constant desire to diversify business in the same hands, but not to diversify the country's economy. “That is, the same person or the same company mines, and processes, and operates banks, and does other businesses, and the rest left behind. Business monopolization is bad, it leads to social depression. People wonder why all kinds of businesses are in the same hands. Why are we worse? There are people who confuse Hegel with Babel, do not have a special education, but they have a huge amount of business in the same hands. At the same time, educated people who have completed special courses cannot get through to business sources, credit resources, and so on. And business goes by. This gives rise to depression, disbelief in society, disbelief in justice, with all the ensuing socio-political consequences," the Head of State concluded.
According to the Head of State, over the past decades, the country's economy has been able to integrate into global processes, conditions have been created for foreign investors that have made it possible to attract large funds to the country, primarily in the extractive industries and the banking sector.
"These finances nourished the Kazakh economy, gave it stability and provided an opportunity to build the foundation of a socially oriented state. But behind external well-being, we somehow did not notice how the raw material blessing gradually turned into a raw material curse. We became less mobile in transformations, qualitative transformations have been hampered by the interests of various groups that opposed such transformations," Tokayev said.
He noted that as a result, a diversified economy has not yet been built. This must be acknowledged.
“Therefore, the task of building a diversified economy is still relevant. No sustainable economy can exist without a strong manufacturing sector. Why hasn’t a breakthrough happened over decades of work? The main mistake was that this was mainly done by the state. Enormous funds were spent on solving structural problems, including those owned by quasi-state structures," continued Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
The head of state stressed that the initiative had to come from business, primarily from large businesses. But this did not happen.
"The public sector, no matter how large, is just a part of the economic system of the state. The expenditure side of the republican budget with all its items - pensions, social obligations and development budget is about 15 trillion tenge or less than 20 percent of GDP. Everything else is formed by the market – large and small enterprises. Therefore, I emphasize again that positive changes in the development of the country largely depend on business. Investment in production, creation of quality jobs, in science and education will definitely pay off," added Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
By Ekaterina Eliseyeva for the Kazakhstanskaya Pravda.
