Kazakhstan Eased the Requirements for Investment Preferences in Tourism
In Kazakhstan, the range of subsidies and preferences for the tourism industry has expanded. Therefore, since the beginning of this year, the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On tourism activities in the Republic of Kazakhstan" came into force, according to which several important amendments to the legislation were developed.
In terms of the development of investment projects in the field of tourism, from January 1, 2022, to sign an investment priority contract and receive appropriate preferences, the investor must invest at least 200 thousand MCI (612.6 million tenge) in the implementation of the project. By the way, this is the lowest threshold among those established. For example, the general threshold for all projects when creating new industries is 2 million MCI (over 6.1 billion), when updating existing ones - 5 million MCI (more than 15.3 billion tenge), in case of creating new industries in the food industry and light industry 1 million MCI (3 billion tenge).
At the same time, since this year, in the Entrepreneurial Code, tourism activities have been included in the main areas of support for entrepreneurship, along with small and medium-sized businesses, industrial and innovative activities, investment activities, and the agro-industrial sector.
"Thus, the business will also receive support in the form of subsidizing the costs of tour operators in the field of inbound tourism for each foreign tourist, reimbursement of part of the costs during construction, reconstruction of tourist facilities, purchase of equipment and machinery for ski resorts, maintenance of sanitary facilities, and construction of roadside facilities, service, etc.", - said Alida Tuyebekova, Director of the Service Support Department of KAZAKH INVEST.
Separately, it is worth noting such an innovation as a tourist fee for foreigners, which is a direct analog of "bed tax". This is a payment collected from tourists for every day of stay in places of accommodation for tourists, except hostels, guesthouses, rental housing in cities and regions. Tourist fee operators for foreigners will transfer the received funds to the local budget. The size of the contribution will be determined by the akimats.
In addition, the Rules came into force subsidizing the costs of tour operators in the field of inbound tourism. For each attracted foreign tourist, tour operators subsidize costs of 15,000 tenge.
