Head of RCE believes that entrepreneurs need to form associations, which will enable them to participate in decision-making

Today, they often say that in any important matter it is not so important, where to start, but it is crucial who takes over the case. A talented person is able to bring a breath of fresh air, even in the most unattractive project. And if before the concept "responsibility", "skill" have always been associated with the specific quality - the experience, nowadays the development of new information technologies, methodologies, analysis and decision-making put to the forefront the creative energy. These are the qualities of the representative of the modern school of management - the director of the Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Zhambyl region Karlygash Aralbekova.

Employees in her team headed are at an average thirty years old. Behind she has a considerable baggage of professional knowledge, but, however, she has not yet gained political experience. However, this situation only benefits her. Because otherwise it would be difficult to imagine a person, holding such a position, without exaggeration, having a healthy passion and enthusiasm to work! And it is impossible to be otherwise in this large-scale project as the Chamber of entrepreneurs.

- Karlygash Amirovna, what is the overall assessment of the development of entrepreneurship in the region? What types of business activities dominate, and why? In which sector is possible and necessary the growth of entrepreneurial activity?

- Today, in spite of the ongoing crisis, the business continues to operate, and it is not bad already. If somewhere someone manages to create something new, it is, of course, great, but, in general, we are working on preservation of the tax base, because it is important for the regional  budget and, most importantly, the preservation of jobs. Agriculture dominates in the structure of Zhambyl region’s business. Today we have 67,378 active businesses in the region, of which 99.4% - is small business, which is mainly concentrated in agriculture - 60%, and in trade. Another thing is that the effect is far from the expected. Agricultural producers have all the assistance the state grants subsidies, the number of businesses in rural areas is increasing. However, it is early to talk about serious results.

- Does the state have enough tools to regulate this process?

- In general, a lot has been done in this direction, for example, the financial institution "KazAgro" in our region provides more support than the second-tier banks. Significant financial investments in agriculture in recent years should have yielded some results. Therefore, in our opinion, it is necessary to change the approach to the development of agriculture. The problem is in small-scale nature of production. More than 16 thousand small farms have 3-4 hectares of land. It is more profitable for our financial institutions to invest in large-scale farms, so the Chamber actively encourages villagers to cooperation.

- In your opinion, what are the advantages of amalgamation of small farms into a large one?

- The first and the most important point - the decline of production costs. For example, a farmer with 3-4 hectares of land, one way or another, needs equipment at the farm. But it is unprofitable to buy own equipment to cultivate a small plot of crops. It is easier to shift to co-operation of  10 small farms or even to buy the same tractor. For example, in South Kazakhstan region they managed to combine 600 small-scale productions in one cooperative. We have created after long persuasion the largest co-operative - "Merke Onimderi" within the dairy cluster, which consists of 42 peasant farms in Merke district. By the way, after seeing prospects, about 15 other peasant farms want to join this cooperative. People have realized that together they find it easier to gain access to finance and to organize stable production volumes so that relevant processing enterprises want to enter with them into contracts on regular basis. An individual small-scale producer has too many risks. He can’t get a bank loan, because the majority either do not have normal collateral base, or have unreliable credit history or can’t prove the existence of a stable income. Among other things, there are objective costs of transport, storage of goods, which will cut all the profits of small-scale production ...

- How loans will be given to the organizations?

- The previous mistakes were taken into account. The new law on co-operation no longer requires farmers to enter into cooperative with their property. An individual can take a loan at own discretion, as much as he wants to invest in the co-production. But any stable entrepreneur, whether it is milk factory, a large shopping center and even a credit institution will want to cooperate with a major reliable commodity producer, who is able to supply the volume of industrial production. The result is of agricultural cooperation ensures a guaranteed sales of their products. Accordingly, the profit will be distributed by a cooperative governing body by an agreement - on the basis of each member's contribution. Chamber of Entrepreneurs under the support of the state is actively engaged with farmers in rural areas, mainly by persuasion of the importance of cooperation both for entrepreneurs and for socio-economic development of the region.

- For many years, in the countryside with large investment - resources are being used inefficiently. The new generation of young villagers, who do not have their allotment are left without work.

- Today of a peasant, a farmer expresses a desire to create a cooperative, the Chamber of entrepreneurs will accompany the process of the organization at all stages. We are created for this purpose, and the villagers should know that they will be protected. We succeed through negotiations to involve financial institutions in the promotion of new projects. Also today, the Chamber of entrepreneurs is in the process of creation of its local microfinance institution. There is a decision of the Board of NCE to allocate 300 million tenge, further the regional maslikhat approved the decision of the regional akimat to allocate 288 million tenge in co-financing to the authorized capital of the Micro Credit Organization. From now on we will be able to finance agricultural projects directly - without the participation of STB as rural business is critical to our region. I would especially like to emphasize that for the successful development of agricultural production, we need to create wholesale and retail distribution logistics centers precisely on agricultural products, as entrepreneurs are often faced with the problem of warehousing and storage. During the season nobody buys small volumes of onion in the south of the region, but these volumes are in demand in the northern part of Kazakhstan and Russia, they often ask to supply to their markets apples, potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables and fruits. And we can’t, because there are no reliable suppliers. A small farmer alone is not able to deliver the goods over long distances. But, if there is a center of collection and delivery of such products to the consumer, for example, railway wagons in the same logistics center of partners, the shipping costs will decrease significantly.

- Is state support required for this level of business, at least in terms of organization? After all, I believe, not only agricultural producers, but also furniture makers, garment workers and many others without the support of the state or any association can’t seriously assert themselves in the commodity markets.

- Meanwhile, many issues require state support. Because even to gather people for a talk, to start to convince them of the necessity of convergence, to prove that this is being done for the sake of their own self-development, and in order to form regional sectoral production clusters, we need a powerful bullhorn, which has a professional ideological awareness analytic machine. So, three months ago we set up a regional committee to support the domestic producers in public procurement, as well as procurement of quasi public companies, headed by Deputy Akim of the region Timur Amantaevich Zhanke, I am a co-chair. I emphasize that we are not engaged in lobbying for a particular side, we rather engaged in monitoring of the situation: what is spent and on what, if the interests of domestic producers are infringed. Our main tool is ideology, persuasion of the participants of the dialogue. We recently organized a meeting with representatives of 58 schools of the city of Taraz, their parents' committees and sewing companies of the region regarding introduction of a single school uniform. It was a complicated dialogue: we have proposed to take a moment and to help the local sewing industry by giving an order for sewing school uniforms. It is clear that everyone wants to use the products of brand production, but we must realize that they are not in our region. How else, if not through such a big order, the local domestic sewers will be able to upgrade production lines, to raise the level of their skills, to recruit staff from the local youth and also finally to start to make significant tax contributions to the budget of the region? Moreover, we must grow from local producers the exporters of Zhambyl products. And here it is necessary in some cases even put pressure on patriotic feelings. Fortunately, in the end, we were able to convince the schools and parents of the rightness of our initiative. By the way, after that, when they began to assess the possibility of regional sewers, it became clear that it is necessary to sew 65 thousand sets of school uniforms only for Taraz girls and boys, while the possibility of regional sewers - 30 companies with small and large shops, in case of required retraining of rural seamstresses, does not exceed 20 thousand sets.

- Well, there is still a lot of organizational work ...

- Moreover, we offer sewers to purchase fabrics from the manufacturers, it is cheaper than to buy it separately through intermediaries. Rural sewers have to do an internship at the city. But here, there some objections, they say, why should we raise the competition? Consumers will not wait for years, when our sewers will get on their feet, and will adjust their own connections. For example, we are familiar with garments of Kyrgyz production. So we have to persuade constantly everyone – sometimes personally. In parallel, work with other businessmen is underway successfully. Just recently, we have accredited Furniture Association. Of course, it is very difficult to bring our business to the confidential conversation, they compete, each one is busy with production. But we are working to ensure that together they express their common concerns and proposals at the Chamber, that is, they should create their own industry associations, only by working together we can develop a common approach to solutions. It should be understood that in the region there are more than 67 thousand entrepreneurs. In general, these are small businesses. There are over two hundred direction of business, resulting in sub-sectors. For example, among the furniture manufacturers, there are ones engaged in school supplies, others in production of kitchen sets, someone provides details of products and so on. The same applies to the agricultural sector. Each has its own specifics and problems to deal in each direction, therefore, the Chamber should have enough staffing for this need. And my staff includes only 25 people. Many people today understand that the Chamber has the power to help, and each comes separately. Over the past year RCE received 8563 appeals, and in the present, already in the first quarter, we received more than 6000! We must understand that if we worked even seven days a week to ten or twelve at night, it is still not possible physically to shovel this volume of work. We can help to create an association, to implement the method of developing joint proposals which they will submit to the Chamber of entrepreneurs. Our organization is included in all the commissions, advisory bodies for business and has a significant voice. On this basis, the problem will be solved much faster. By the way, we plan to accredit the two other associations soon - tourism and textile. The leaders of preschool educational institutions also intend to establish their association with the Chamber of Entrepreneurs. In short, our motto and operating system - "in unity is our strength" - is beginning to bear fruit.

- A majority of businessmen address regarding what?

- At one of the stages of the work we have brought Statistics, and it turned out that out of 8163 applications only 12 complaints were from big business 180 - from medium-sized businesses. That is a large and medium-sized businesses until recently assessed our capabilities. But lately, their attitude towards us changed, they mostly apply regarding legal issues. Up to 80 percent of the trials of businessmen with participation of the Chamber are resolved positively. People see that we are focused on results in the work.

- A quick glance at the volumes and topics of directions of development of the regional Chamber, which involve research methodological support, and you have, as it was mentioned, 25 people in the organization ...

- Of course, we in the Chamber have a very big workload, at some Research Institutes whole units are engaged in research activities, and we sometimes have two people to prepare the necessary materials at the level of legislative initiative. In general, unpatriotic people will not be able to work here. Often it is morally difficult, when an entrepreneur asks for help, they say, there no one else to hope for. In this regard, you feel a great responsibility. And there are more applications each day. That is why we offer entrepreneurs to form associations, so that they themselves participate in decision-making.

- Are there many complaints related to judicial conflicts?

- No, there are relatively few. According to statistics, 7944 of the total number of complaints are related to the economic problems, 279 – to various legal issues. The remaining 132 appeals - on social issues, including personnel, i.e. businessmen are concerned about the lack of personnel reserve for production.

- I wonder what specialists want to get our entrepreneurs into their reserve?

- By the way, from the HR requests emerges another business problem: all seek and wish to get ready high-class specialists. But where to get them from? Generally, in any kind of business does not always have enough staff. We offer the same furniture manufacturers, textile workers, builders place an order through the Regional Chamber in professional educational institutions for training of the necessary specialists. This virtually does not oblige them to anything but moral obligations to graduates. But, it turns out, that businessmen are afraid to build plans for development and expansion for at least next two or three years, while the Chamber with the full support is ready to help them to develop a clear plan.

- Tell us about the work within the tourist destination, once declared a priority.

- Yes, in parallel with other projects for the fifth month, with the active participation of akimat we promote the project of tourism development in Zhambyl region. For this purpose, the regional maslikhat has allocated more than 41 million tenge. We plan twice a year to hold themed festivals with relevant information, providing a visual-propaganda, it will be a festival "Kazakh Khanate" and Tulip Festival, as the birthplace of these flowers - Zhambyl region, in particular, Berikkara gorge. When we contacted the travel agencies, it turned out that they tell stories about tourism objects, often without having any knowledge. As a result, and unconfirmed facts, and outright fiction. We began to prepare for all objects a single accurate summary in the Kazakh, Russian and English languages. They will made signs, brochures, advertising materials. In addition, the regional maslikhat approved the decision of akimat on the allocation of 250 million from the regional budget, plus 250 million tenge from the Fund "Damu" on concessional lending for infrastructure development of the tourism cluster. Another important area in the future - is the transfer of tourist sites, such as the key 48 - in trust management to business. The fact is that our historical sites still require a lot of capital investment, ongoing care, landscaping, for this they should naturally be profitable. Again, with the support of akimat the first phase of the project development of domestic tourism has been initiated. Each district has collected a group of 20-30 people hiking trails in the area, which were designed by entrepreneurs with our participation. By the way, most of our tourists for the first time got acquainted with the sights of their region and an unforgettable experience.