Jun 02, 2026
“Building a sustainable model for the city’s development.
Implementing the project involves significant capital and operating costs, which, in turn, requires the creation of a stable, predictable revenue base. The current financial and economic model carries certain risks in terms of covering future expenses.
The inflow of investment and business development, on which the plan relies, is not a guaranteed source of revenue, but merely a forecast and an expectation.
Furthermore, the preferential measures envisaged for the initial phase will reduce tax revenue.
This risks creating a structural gap, where expenditure on the city’s development and upkeep is required immediately, whilst revenue is either deferred or initially underestimated.
Therefore, the Alatau Development Council, in conjunction with the City Authority, must develop an effective financial and economic model for long-term sustainable development. In parallel, the city’s foundational strategic planning documents must be approved. Investors, partners and citizens must understand what Alatau will look like in 10, 20 and 30 years’ time.
Alatau City will become the first fully digital city, where infrastructure, urban services and the economy are integrated on the basis of big data, cutting-edge technologies and ‘smart’ management. These are the key guiding principles.
All strategic documents (the long-term plan, master plan and development strategy) must be adopted by the end of 2026, so that the active phase of the city’s development can begin as early as next year.
In the implementation of such large-scale long-term projects, a swift, accelerated and, above all, successful start to this process is of paramount importance. If we start dragging our feet – consider the matter lost.
The Almaty metropolitan area must be developed. The regional authorities and the business community must recognise that the proximity of Alatau city to Almaty opens up great opportunities for a significant expansion of trade, economic, transport and logistics links between them. I believe that both regional authorities and business leaders must fully appreciate this.
I therefore reiterate: the priority in Alatau city must be to create attractive conditions for doing business; people will then naturally be drawn to the businesses, which, in turn, will reduce the commuter migration of the population to Almaty.
Every day, around 400,000 cars enter Almaty from the region. It is essential to strengthen transport links within the Almaty conurbation and actively develop high-speed public transport. To address this issue, I instruct the akims of the city of Almaty and the Almaty Region, in conjunction with the Samruk-Kazyna Fund, to work out all aspects of the project to construct Skytrain lines from the city limits in an easterly and westerly direction by 1 August this year.
It is necessary to examine the development of high-speed public transport linking Alatau with Almaty. The location of the new city along the BAKAD corridor and the planned development of a railway line connecting Alatau with Khorgos will, in the long term, broaden the horizon, extending beyond the boundaries of the Almaty metropolitan area. In other words, a vast regional cluster will be formed.
One of the region’s most important projects will be the modern multimodal logistics centre, Almaty SkyHub. To realise these ambitious projects, all necessary conditions must be created and investors actively attracted. “As far as I am aware, there are already potential partners, including foreign companies, interested in developing trade and logistics centres and warehouse infrastructure. We must make the most of the opportunities that are opening up,” – stated K.J.Tokayev.
Read more: https://www.akorda.kz/ru/vystuplenie-glavy-gosudarstva-kasym-zhomarta-tokaeva-na-soveshchanii-po-razvitiyu-goroda-alatau-255039