The Ministry of Economy in Kazakhstan plans to reduce the dependence of single-industry towns on city-forming enterprises.
The city of Saran in the Karaganda region has been used as an example, as it has moved away from mono-directionality and created various household industries. The government plans to extend this experience to other single-industry towns. There are 27 single-industry towns in Kazakhstan, where 1.4 million people live and 32 city-forming enterprises operate. The volume of industrial production in these towns has increased from 6.3 trillion to 11.2 trillion tenge from 2015 to 2021, and they currently provide 29% of this indicator across the country.
The Minister of Economy, Alibek Kuantirov, emphasized the importance of differentiating the economy of single-industry towns in order to avoid the situation where when a mine or deposit is depleted, the city dies.