The issues of removing digital barriers between the Eurasian Economic Union countries, implementing innovative solutions in trade and other sectors of the economy, and key global technological trends were discussed at the plenary session "Digital Partnership in a New Reality" at the Fifth Anniversary Digital Almaty Forum, El.kz cites primeminister.kz .
The event was attended by the Heads of Governments of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, Belarus Roman Golovchenko, Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov, Kyrgyzstan Akylbek Japarov, Russia Mikhail Mishustin and Uzbekistan Abdulla Aripov.
In his speech, the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan noted that the government implements all necessary measures to annually increase the contribution of new technologies to the country's GDP. This applies to digital transformation, creation of favourable conditions for IT industry and development of human capital.
However, according to him, to give a multiplier effect to the development of IT markets of EEU countries requires a solid platform. A good example in this regard is Astana Hub Technopark, which has become not only a local, but also an active regional player.
In addition, the Prime Minister added that an autonomous cluster fund "Park of Innovative Technologies" has now created an ecosystem that brings together industrial enterprises and the IT market in Kazakhstan. In total over the years the fund has financed 187 projects worth over $36 million in areas such as Industry 4.0, geology, metallurgy and so on.
"It is important to progressively develop cooperation between the technological incubators of our countries," Alikhan Smailov stressed.
The Head of Government said that Kazakhstan was currently on the way to digital transformation of the state administration, which included implementation of FinTech and GovTech projects. In general, he said, thanks to the openness of the state and technological business in the country has already achieved a high level of penetration of digital solutions in everyday life.
"Digitalisation is an important component in ensuring equality of opportunity and justice for all citizens of the country," he said.
Alikhan Smailov added that the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan is also transitioning to a qualitatively new concept of digital government, Invisible Government, where people, their needs and interests are at the centre of public policy. As a result, it gives impetus to the implementation of proactive government services.
"One of the key approaches here is the multi-platform principle of service delivery. The government is moving away from the bottleneck model, allowing businesses to integrate government services into their own platforms and digital ecosystems. The benefits of this approach are clear," the Prime Minister said.
In general, he noted that in recent years Kazakhstan has made significant progress in the level of e-government development. In the relevant UN ranking, the republic has improved its position, rising from 39th to 28th place (since 2018), and in the sub-rating of online services, it has entered the top 10 countries of the world, rising from 16th to 8th place.
At the same time, the Prime Minister outlined the importance of strengthening integration and creating projects with a common Eurasian scope. According to him, the start of this work could be the creation of the Digital Competence Centre in Almaty as a platform for formation and implementation of major digital initiatives within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union.
In conclusion, Alikhan Smailov mentioned the topics of improving accessibility and quality of communications, as well as development of cross-border electronic document flow.
He stressed that in order to create favourable conditions for logistics companies, Kazakhstan was working on transition to electronic transport documents. A similar practice, in his opinion, could be introduced in the EEU, namely the conversion of all foreign permit forms into electronic format.
"The elimination of paperwork reduces corruption risks, increases the transparency of mutual trade and, most importantly, allows businesses to optimise their costs," Alikhan Smailov said.
Another topical topic, according to the Prime Minister, is electronic interaction of the EEU countries in the sphere of mutual trade.
"These and other issues could become important areas of our joint work in the field of digitalization," he concluded.
As part of the forum, Alikhan Smailov, together with the heads of the governments of the EEU countries and Uzbekistan, familiarized themselves with an international exhibition of digital projects, which had been deployed at Kazakhstan's Atakent Centre for Business Cooperation.
Thus, the guests were presented with major projects of eGov Mobile, Smart Data Ukimet, Smart Industry Management Platform, country technoparks, and a number of start-ups. In particular, tenth-grader Sholpan Amankeldy's project "Venus-Sat.kz nanosatellite", which aims to study the state of the ozone layer, astronomical movements in outer space and predict earthquakes.