The President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Qasym-Jomart Toqayev announced in the livestream.

This is especially important in terms of maintaining employment and paying salaries.

Therefore, for SMEs in the most affected sectors of the economy, the accrual and payment of taxes and other payments from the wage fund is canceled for 6 months (from April 1 to October 1 of this year).

These sectors include: catering, selected trade sectors, transportation services, consulting services, IT sector, hotel business, tourism, etc.

The state commission on state of emergency will approve the final list and will update it as necessary.

In the appeal of entrepreneurs, I also noted a request for non-assessment of any taxes for the period of crisis.

On this issue I would like to note the following.

An operational decision was made; on my instructions, the Government suspended the payment of all taxes for SMEs for three months.

At the moment, taxes in this period do not need to be paid, but will have to be paid later.

Depending on what it will be, we will make the final decision.

The government is working with partners in the Eurasian Economic Union in terms of zeroing import duties for the most important import for us.

The decision on personal protective equipment, raw materials for their production, vaccines, diagnostic kits has already been made.

Work continues to reduce import duties on a number of food products, for which we are not self-sufficient.

The government should ensure that requests from domestic businesses are taken into account and expedite this work.

It is also important to engage the potential of local small and medium-sized businesses.

introduce the so-called "forward purchase" or "purchase for the crop."

It is necessary to determine a clear mechanism for the integration of enterprises along the entire chain - from the field to the counter and provide them with soft loans.

- Qasym-Jomart Toqayev.

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