ASTANA (TCA) — Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev on March 5 visited the country’s first McDonald’s restaurant in Astana with the purpose to encourage foreign investors to come and invest in Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev’s Spokesman Dauren Abayev wrote on the official page of the presidential office in the Facebook.
“We can not deny that the opening of a McDonald’s restaurant is a long-awaited-for event for Kazakhstanis. At the same time, the reasons of [Nazarbayev’s] visit are more pragmatic,” Abayev wrote.
In his words, in the future the McDonald’s network in Kazakhstan will provide jobs for around 20 thousand Kazakh citizens. Also, the restaurants will use 70-80 percent of local products.
In addition, Abayev wrote, before coming to a new market, investors want to know what international brands are already represented there, and McDonald’s is certainly not the last brand to be mentioned in this regard.
Nazarbayev’s visit is therefore “the president’s call on foreign investors to come to Kazakhstan and invest their money here,” the presidential spokesman concludes.
The McDonald’s restaurant in Astana will be officially opened on March 8.
As was earlier reported, Kazakh businessman Kairat Boranbaev is the owner of the franchise rights to operate a McDonald’s restaurant in Astana.
Boranbaev’s daughter is married to President Nazarbayev’s grandson.
Boranbaev earlier said that $3.5 million was invested in the construction of the restaurant building in Astana, and that he plans to open 15 McDonald’s restaurants in Kazakhstan by 2019.
Boranbaev also said the first McDonald’s restaurant in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, will be opened in May-June.
