ASTANA (TCA) — One of the purposes of the draft Code on the Subsoil and Subsoil Use is to increase the investment attractiveness of Kazakhstan’s mining industry, the Vice Minister for Investment and Development Timur Toktabayev said at a briefing following the Government’s meeting on September 19, the official website of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan reported.
The Vice Minister said that there is an insufficient investment in geological exploration today in Kazakhstan, and that it is necessary to discover and explore new deposits, which requires attracting new investors to the country.
“To date, the conclusion of contracts takes up to two years. It is necessary to simplify the procedures for geological exploration, so that investors would be able to come and begin investing in the search and exploration of new deposits,” the Vice Minister said.
For this purpose, Kazakhstan has studied international experience, and during the drafting of the Code “On the Subsoil and Subsoil Use”, the government has taken the Australian model as a basis. Australia is considered the number one country in terms of investment attractiveness in the mining industry.
According to the draft Subsoil Code, the exploration of weakly explored deposits can be licensed within three days according to the principle “the first requests, the first gets”.
“This significantly simplifies the procedure and, most importantly, will accelerate the flow of investment in Kazakhstan,” Toktabayev said.
