ASTANA, Kazakhstan, November 14. Small and medium-sized businesses in the West Kazakhstan region produced products worth 1 trillion tenge (about $2.15 billion) from January through September 2023, said the head of the executive power (akim) of the region Nariman Turegaliyev, Trend reports.
"This year, 21.6 billion tenge (about $46 million) were allocated for this area, more than 3,000 projects were supported," he said.
The number of operating SMEs in the region increased by 21 percent and today reached 58 thousand units.
As he noted, today, the number of people employed in this sector has grown by 11 percent and amounts to 126,000 people.
The number of registered legal entities as of October 1, 2023, in the region amounted to 12,586 units and increased by 2.5 percent compared to the corresponding date of the previous year, including 12,255 units with less than 100 employees.
In addition, the number of operating legal entities was 10,017 units, of which 9,689 units were small enterprises. The number of registered small and medium-sized enterprises (legal entities) in the region amounted to 12,497 units and increased by 2.4 percent compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.
The volume of retail trade in the region from January through September 2023 amounted to 375.8 billion tenge (about $808 million) or 110.5 percent compared to the level of January-September 2022 (in comparable prices).
The volume of wholesale trade amounted to 402.8 billion tenge (about $864 million) or 127.9 percent of the level from January through September 2022 (in comparable prices).
According to preliminary data, from January through August 2023, mutual trade with the EAEU countries amounted to $594.9 million, which is 14.7 percent more than from January through August 2022, including exports - $155.3 million (an increase of 59 percent), imports - $439.6 million (an increase of 4.4 percent).
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