ASTANA, Kazakhstan, April 16. The number of registered small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Kazakhstan amounted to 2.179 million as of January 1, 2024, which is 7 percent more than the figure as of January 1, 2023, Trend reports.
According to the data from the country's Bureau of National Statistics, 2 million SMEs, out of the total number of registered ones, are active.
At the same time, individual entrepreneurs occupy 68.4 percent of the total number of active SMEs, small business legal entities - 18 percent, peasant or farm enterprises - 13.5 percent, medium-sized legal entities - 0.1 percent.
In addition, among the active entities, 35.1 percent are engaged in trade, 15.6 percent – in other types of services, and 14.3 percent – in agriculture.
The SME sector accounts for 45.6 percent of the total economically active population of the country. Thus, the number of people employed in SMEs increased by 5.3 percent and amounted to 4.3 million.
Moreover, the share of SMEs in GDP from January through September 2023 in the country amounted to 36.5 percent and increased by 0.5 percentage points compared to the corresponding period in 2022.
Meanwhile, the share of small and medium-sized businesses in Kazakhstan's GDP increased to 36.5 percent in 2023. By 2030, the government plans to increase the share of SMEs to 40 percent.