National Bank Says Digital Tenge Is Helping Kazakhstan Track Public Spending
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Kazakhstan’s digital tenge has already helped identify inflated costs in some state-funded projects, National Bank Chairman Timur Suleimenov said, Orda.kz reports.
Suleimenov said several problems emerged during the rollout and use of the digital tenge, especially in road construction.
There were a number of issues. This was especially true for road construction: the cost of building materials for essentially similar road sections differed sharply. In different regions, the difference reached several times. We signaled this so that budget program administrators could take appropriate measures and correct it,Suleimenov said.
According to him, this shows the practical effect of the digital tenge and smart contract platforms.
Suleimenov also spoke about a pilot project involving digital VAT. He said it helped reduce the tax refund period from about 80 days to 10.
In the case of digital VAT, this is also an extremely important element, especially now, when enterprises need working capital. The period has been reduced from about 80 days to literally 10. These figures have been fully confirmed under the pilot. Now, together with the Ministry of Finance and the State Revenue Committee, we will expand this project as much as possible to other categories of taxpayers,he said.
Suleimenov said one of the main problems is the quality of databases held by different state bodies. For the digital tenge to work properly, Kazakhstan needs complete and reliable industry databases. Without them, the system will not be able to show its full potential.
If there is no industry database that can be used to assess a project’s cost or the need for one level of mediation or another, then, of course, the digital tenge will not be able to show its full potential,Suleimenov said.
The issue has already been discussed at the prime minister’s digital headquarters. A separate working group has been created to solve the problems. It is led by Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin on behalf of the government and by Suleimenov on behalf of the National Bank.
Suleimenov also set a target for the digital tenge’s volume. According to him, Kazakhstan wants to bring it to 1 trillion tenge in the coming months and by the beginning of 2027.
Original author: Ilya Astakhov
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