By Trend

The first investment project with Azerbaijani capital - Aromat LLP perfume factory has been commissioned in "Astana - new city" free economic zone (FEZ) in Kazakhstan’s Nur-Sultan, “Astana - Technopolis" Special Economic Zone Managing Company’s CEO Bakytzhan Doskaziyev told Trend.

According to Doskaziyev, it’s planned to begin the implementation of the second stage of production.

He said that the initial investment in the project amounted to 400 million tenge ($792,080).

"Within the second stage of production it’s planned to invest more 200 million tenge ($396,040). The expansion of production under the second stage is expected to be completed by the end of 2022,” the CEO noted.

Besides, according to him, the expansion of production will help increase the number of employees, which is planned to be raised to 50 people.

Doskaziyev stressed that in 2021 Aromat LLP exported 80 percent of the total volume of manufactured products.

"It is planned to expand the range of products manufactured at the factory to 250 types of different types of perfumery and cosmetic products. Currently, more than 20 types of perfumery products are being manufactured," he said.

He also said that following the expansion of production in 2022, the factory is expected to produce over 2.1 million bottles through the launch of a robotized machine.

The main export market for Aromat LLP products is Russia, and in the near future it’s planned to sign a contract for the export of perfume products to Kuwait and Iraq.

Along with the above, Doskaziyev noted that since the establishment of the "Astana-New City" FEZ, residents of the FEZ have paid funds in the amount of 132 billion tenge (over $309.3 million) to the budget of Kazakhstan.

The FEZ residents are exempt from all types of taxes, except for VAT on sales and tax on employee salaries.

"Furthermore, in 2021, the FEZ enterprises produced goods worth over one trillion tenge (over $2.343 billion), up by almost two times compared to 2019 (550 billion tenge, or nearly $1.29 billion),” the CEO pointed out.

“There is great demand for mineral fertilizers - both in Kazakhstan and in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The fertilizers are exported by the Swiss company Swissgrow, which has built its plant on the FEZ territory,” he said. “Stahlbau company [another resident of the FEZ], manufacturing municipal equipment under the Italian IVECO brand, has export potential. Besides, Lokomotiv Kurastyru Zauyty JSC, Electric Locomotive Kurastyru Zauyty JSC (Alstom), and a number of other enterprises work for export," Doskaziyev also said.

He added that investors from Azerbaijan, Turkey, France, the US, Poland, South Africa, Russia, and China work in the SEZ.

Totally, 24.5 billion tenge (about $98 million at the exchange rate of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan) of state investments were invested in the special economic zone (SEZ) of Nur-Sultan city, which attracted 200 billion tenge (over $800 million) of private investments. In total, products worth 3.7 trillion tenge (over $8.6 billion) were manufactured on the territory of the FEZ.

The territory of the industrial zones of the SEZ is 600 hectares. Currently, the SEZ has enterprises for the production of building materials, machines, locomotives and wagons, a number of IT and start-up projects, manufacturers of medical equipment, workwear, perfumes and others.