From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Wed Jul 09 2003 - 09:47:31 EDT
Kazakh premier outlines action programme of government
Excerpt from report by Kazakh Khabar TV on 8 July
[Presenter] Kazakh Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov held an unscheduled
government sitting today. The new cabinet had presented its programme
[of action] to the country's parliament a week ago. The head of state
[President Nursultan Nazarbayev] will receive the document before the
end of this month. The prime minister thinks that it is necessary to
define specific areas of work and mark the timescale for the
implementation of projects now.
[Correspondent] The government should achieve results in all priority
areas by autumn. This is the task set out by Prime Minister Daniyal
Akhmetov for the new government today.
[Passage omitted: the Kazakh government is planning to submit its
programme of action to President Nursultan Nazarbayev for approval
before the end of this year]
The government is planning to create a competitive environment in the
railway transport, telecommunications and power sectors. It is proposed
to separate passenger transportation from freight transportation; to
carry out partial privatization from the beginning of 2004 and sell out
outdated railway carriages.
It is also planned to grant all operators the right to work on the
markets of long-distance and international communications by then, but
not to grant [this right] to a single national operator as is the case
now. The government thinks that more companies should be granted mobile
communications services. It was also proposed that a retail electricity
market should be created and the privatization of regional power
companies be completed by 1 June next year.
The prime minister noted that the most important task of the government
was Kazakhstan's entry to the WTO. The post of deputy minister was
introduced to the Industry and Trade Ministry to deal constantly with
this issue.
[Passage omitted: Daniyal Akhmetov emphasized that the work of financial
institutions should be improved]
In order to attract investments to the production sector of the economy,
the government is planning to reconsider its tax policy. More attention
will be paid to the development of infrastructure. The government has
been told to draw up [the plan for] the construction of a new grain
terminal at Aktau [port on the Caspian coast] before the end of this
year. The prospects for providing sea and air transport to the oil and
gas fields in the Caspian Sea should be defined. The head of government
also gave an instruction to draw up a regional housing programme.
Daniyal Akhmetov thinks that major repairs should be carried out from
operational costs on maintaining houses.
Source: Khabar Television, Almaty, in Russian 1400 gmt 8 Jul 03
BBC Mon CAU 080703/jl/qu
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