Business & Economy

Kazakhstan adopts revised National Development Plan

Nur-Sultan, Mar 9 (efe-epa).- The government of Kazakhstan has approved a National Development Plan revised to take into consideration the realities of the coronavirus pandemic, the Economy Ministry said Tuesday.

The new version of the document, signed by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, stresses the need to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus crisis and to put the energy-rich Central Asian nation on a trajectory to sustained economic growth.

When it was first adopted in 2018, the National Development Plan envisaged annual economic growth of between 4.1 percent and 5 percent through 2025, but “the combined impact of the pandemic and the global recession has shaped a ‘new reality,’ fundamentally changing Kazakhstan’s baseline scenario,” the Economy Ministry said.

In light of that new reality, the government’s aim now is to recover the positive dynamic.

Kazakhstan’s gross domestic product (GDP) fell last year by 2.6 percent, compared with growth of 4.5 percent in 2019, Tokayev said, while noting that the forecast calls for GDP to increase by 3 percent in 2021.

The amended plan foresees a budget deficit of no more than 3 percent of GDP through 2025, while the national debt is to remain below 50 percent of GDP.

The inflation target for 2025 is between 3 percent and 4 percent. EFE

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