On the "Atameken" site, measures of state support in the sphere of tourism were discussed in the framework of creating the draft State Program for the Development of the Tourist Industry for 2019-2023.

Deputy Chairman of the Board of NCE RK "Atameken" Yulia Yakupbaeva noted that the regulator and market participants have been discussing the development of the industry for a number of years and they are actively working to improve regulatory documents. At the same time, for the successful implementation of the new Program, it is necessary to take into account the mistakes of the previous documents and to foresee funding.

"We need to review the structure of the Program in terms of dividing up measures for domestic and inbound tourism, as well as divide activities into short-term (quick effect) and long-term (strategic measures)," - Yulia Yakupbaeva recommended. - In the section of domestic tourism, it is necessary to take into account the need to develop measures to reduce the cost of travel, the development of tourist places in the regions, the definition of strategic directions, and the stimulation of the formation of domestic tourism products."

Yulia Yakupbaeva drew attention to the fact that it is necessary to consider issues of branding, advertising of Kazakhstan tourist products, digitization in the section of inbound tourism.

"We need to raise the issue of training guides. For this, it is necessary to establish cooperation with the faculties of history and tourism in the country's universities. In the long term, it is necessary to provide for cheaper logistics and the development of low-costers," - Yulia Yakupbaeva noted.

The Deputy Chairman of the Board of the National Council noted the fact that in the development of the Program in the section of systemic measures it is necessary to pay attention to the development of infrastructure, improving the quality of service through the introduction of the rating system, measures to develop the craftsmanship cluster. 

Vice Minister of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Kazakhstan Yerlan Kozhagapanov noted that all issues will be considered and taken into account in the draft State program.

"We have studied the experience of our neighbors and competitors - Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan. For example, last year Uzbekistan increased financial injections into the industry, which doubled the flow of tourists to the country and increased the activity of foreign tourists. The new program will cover the entire industry. As part of the work on the Program, we have already met with the association of craftsmen in Kazakhstan and tour operators," - Yerlan Kozhagapanov said.

The initial draft of the Program was presented to the participants by Kairat Sadvakasov, Deputy Chairman of the Board of "NC "Kazakh Tourism" JSC. He noted that the implementation of the Program is impossible without funding.

"Today we are losing market share, which means the loss of revenue. The goal of the Program is to increase the competitiveness of the tourist industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan and to bring its share in the GDP structure up to 8% by 2023. For this purpose we set 4 main tasks: institutionalization of the industry through legislative initiatives, systematization of state support measures, and activation of marketing activities. The solution of these problems is 30% of our success for the development of inbound tourism," - Kairat Sadvakasov said.

Another task of the Ministry was to set the priorities for the industry development through the tourism map. The map includes 60 tourism facilities, most of which are located in the regions of Kazakhstan, as well as TOP-10 places, which, according to the results of the survey, provided the largest flow of tourists into the country. According to Kairat Sadvakasov, this top ten should meet the standards of service first and foremost.

In the course of the discussion, Assel Nurkebayeva, President of the Organization of individual entrepreneurs and legal entities "ATAK", proposed to consider the exemption in terms of VAT for accommodation and public catering places. She also called on the headquarters for the development of the Program to focus on the real opportunities of Kazakhstani tourism.

"Let's be realistic, we will not increase the flow of tourists by 10 million people in five years, - Assel Nurkebayeva noted. - We voice our proposals, which relate not only to state support measures, because business is afraid that not all proposals will enter the new Development Program".

During the meeting, the participants discussed a number of issues and proposals regarding statistics, competitiveness, staff shortages, expansion of the list of facilities, creation of national recreation areas and subsidies for entrepreneurs. The headquarters for the preparation of the Program took note of the issues and proposals of the meeting participants in part of:

- considering the possibility of reducing the VAT rate for public catering venues and other facilities providing tourist services;

- providing support to Kazakhstani companies bringing tourist buses;

- concretization of measures of state support included in the state program;

- consideration of the possibility of granting the land of the forest fund of the Republic of Kazakhstan to private property for the development of investment tourism projects;

- lowering the investment threshold for tourism projects to 2 billion tg;

- subsidizing the construction of engineering communications for tourist facilities;

- reducing the cost of gas (to the social cost) for heating tourist facilities in the winter;

- introduction of benefits for public services in suburban tourist facilities;

- introduction of benefits for the import of equipment for accommodation facilities and children's camps;

- synchronization of existing sectoral programs in terms of addressing common issues;

- additional subsidizing of aviation fuel for Kazakhstan airlines.

During the meeting, the Committee of the tourism industry of the MСS RK reported on the changes made to the Decree of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 13 dated January 14, 2016 "On some issues of implementing state support for investments".

"We did a great work on state support measures. Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev signed the Government Decree, which included the tourism industry. These are measures to support the development of skiing infrastructure. One type of economic activity for the development of thematic recreation areas, construction and development of the hotel business, road service and development of the resort industry ", - Yerlan Kozhagapanov listed.

The Vice-Minister noted that thanks to the efforts of the expert community, the MCS and "Atameken", the industry was included in the second priority list, which would allow the state agency or investor to use five types of benefits: obtaining a land grant, exemption from customs tariffs and taxes on land, property and CIT. The cost of the project should not be less than 4.9 billion tenge. We focused on the medium and large investor. To increase business responsibility, restrictions were introduced. Under the terms, the investment projects should be in rural areas or small towns, and they should be put into operation from January 1, 2019.

"We asked for a full block, including investment subsidies. It turned out that the sphere of services was excluded from the Entrepreneurial Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Atameken tried to include amendments to the Entrepreneurial Code within the framework of the Doing Business changes package, but it did not work out in time. I suggest including our proposals on the service sector in the next package of amendments, and then we will be able to claim investment grants. So far, according to the Resolution, which is today, the business can not claim them. Also at the level of Vice Premier we discussed the issue of lowering the threshold for investment projects for tourism. We have large industries, and there is a small tourism. We know that in the countryside the giants of the hotel business will not build the infrastructure. "Atameken" proposes to reduce the threshold to 2 billion tenge," - Yulia Yakupbaeva summarized.

The participants of the meeting actively offered solutions on issues of state support. The chairman of the Committee of the tourism branch of the NCE RK "Atameken" Pavel Kazantsev noted that all the questions asked will not be unnoticed. Participants are invited to send all the additions under the Program to "NC "Kazakh Tourism" JSC at hotline@qaztourism.kz

Summarizing, Yerlan Kozhagapanov suggested to quickly review each block of the program structure on the site of the National Council with the participation of responsible state bodies, the expert community and representatives of the regions. The next meeting will focus on the optimization of the visa regime in the development of the program for the development of tourism until 2023.