Kazakhstan plans to simplify complex trading rules

By Raushan Nurshayeva

ASTANA, May 13 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan announced plans on Tuesday to simplify by next year its customs regulations, which have been criticised by domestic producers and labelled by the World Bank as the world's most complicated.

Finance Minister Bolat Zhamishev told a government meeting Kazakhstan would change its legislation this year with a view to introduce simplified trading procedures from January 2009.

"Overall it will be something our business will appreciate and will have an impact on economic development," Zhamishev said.

Bowing to growing pressure to liberalise the sector, Prime Minister Karim Masimov ordered the government this month to speed up the reform in a country aiming to join the world's 10 biggest crude exporters within a decade.

Kazakhstan is also one of the world's biggest producers of grain, uranium, copper and steel.

The World Bank ranked Central Asia's biggest economy and oil producer at the bottom of the 178 countries it surveyed in its 2008 "Doing Business" report in terms of time and money required to arrange standard import and export deals.

According to the World Bank, exporting a standardised cargo of goods currently requires 12 documents, takes 89 days and costs $2,730 to arrange, while an import procedure involves 14 documents, costs $2,780 and takes 76 days.

Under the changes, the number of documents required in both operations will be cut substantially, Zhamishev said.