Kazakhstan plans to introduce tax on tourists

Almaty. October 20. Silkroadnews – The proposal has been forwarded in Kazakhstan to introduce a tax for foreign tourists, director of Tourism Industry Department of the Ministry for Investments and Development of Kazakhstan Marat Yigal said, KazTAG writes.

“Currently we carry out negotiations and meetings on transfer of functions to facilitate tourism under the competitive environment”, M. Yigal noted.

He also added, more than 200 million tenge has been provided by the budget in Kazakhstan to promote the tourism, which is a “small” amount if compared to the leading countries.

“It is supposed to create a special agency for promotion, marketing, building of Kazakhstan’s brand. Now the issue is which department will be in charge for this work. Maybe it will be created under the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs, maybe under the ministry, Kaznex Invest. There are many options in this regard”, head of department said.

In addition, he said, the proposal has been forwarded to introduce a tax on tourists.

“We’ve done the calculations, up to 3% of the tourist accommodation in the hotel is a worldwide practice. We based the calculation on assumption of about 500 tenge per day. Quite a good amount can get accumulated. Currently we have about 7 million overnight stays (...) bright examples in this regard are Georgia, countries of Europe, UAE, where this tax is directed to develop the tourism”, he summarized.