Rustam Karagoishin: Baiterek Holding is ready to become a reliable conductor of business initiatives

Rustam Karagoyshin, Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of Baiterek NMH JSC, spoke at the Online SME Development Forum held by a subsidiary of the Holding - the Damu Entrepreneurship Development Fund.

The modern online format allowed not only local, but also international partners of the Damu Fund from different countries to visit the forum. The whole world today is fighting the pandemic and its consequences, including those of an economic nature. The participants of the forum not only shared their experience in overcoming the difficulties that arose associated with the pandemic, but also discussed possible solutions to support entrepreneurs.

In Kazakhstan, the Baiterek Holding, a key financial operator of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, became an anti-crisis instrument during the period of emergency. In his speech, Rustam Karagoishin said that "the holding has developed and is implementing a number of anti-crisis measures, which, together with general country anti-crisis measures, have improved the business climate index in Kazakhstan."

- In May this year, this index reached -13.7, in June it was only -2.7. That is, business is talking about improving business conditions and the effectiveness of measures taken. As far as business support measures are concerned, the key institution is the Damu Entrepreneurship Development Fund, one of the main subsidiaries of the Baiterek Holding. In this difficult time for business, the Damu Fund has done a lot to simplify the processes of considering applications and agreeing on changes related to the restructuring of loans, removed industry restrictions, increased the amount of loans, etc. - noted Rustam Karagoishin.

According to him, in the first half of 2020, the Damu Fund supported over 6,800 projects of entrepreneurs for a total amount of loans of about 240 billion tenge. Compared to 2019, for the same period there is a 10% decrease in the number of projects, while the amount of support increased by 5%. The industries are dominated by agriculture, trade and manufacturing. The Damu Fund also considered and provided restructuring of loans for more than 3,000 projects for a total amount of loans of 100 billion tenge.

To implement these measures, the Holding, as the sole shareholder of Damu, has capitalized the Fund in the amount of 30 billion tenge to finance small and medium-sized businesses on preferential terms.

- I would like to note that Baiterek Holding, enjoying significant support from the sole shareholder in the person of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as having credit ratings at the level of the sovereign rating of Kazakhstan, as the main financial and anti-crisis institution for the country's development, is ready to act as a reliable conductor of business initiatives of Kazakhstan and foreign business, providing various forms of support, from the stage of structuring projects to financing them and providing export support, - concluded by Rustam Karagoishin.

It should be noted that representatives of SME Bank JSC, USAID, Asian Development Bank, KOSGEB Agency for SME Support of Turkey, KOBIA Small and Medium Business Development Agency of Azerbaijan, PARP Polish Entrepreneurship Development Agency, Garanty Fund ”of Kyrgyzstan, JSC“ Kazakh Export ”(subsidiary of the holding“ Baiterek ”), JSC“ Kazakh Invest ”and the International Financial Center “Astana”.

According to the organizers, the forum will not only help develop and strengthen cooperation, but will also become the first of many events in favor of Kazakhstani and foreign entrepreneurs in the new realities.