September 2010|1 - KazEnergy

September 2010|7
devoted to achieving its strategic development
goals: ensuring sustainable economic
development, maintaining a favourable
environment and sustainable infrastructure,
establishing a socially sustainable urban community
and improving municipal management
systems.
To ensure sustainable economic development
Astana constantly improves not only its image
as the administrative centre of Kazakhstan
but also as a city with a diversified economy
and the high involvement of the competitive
private sector.
A competitive economy, work efficiency
improvement, new goods and services
production will become the basis for an
increase in standards of living that will ensure
a high employment rate. This, in turn, will
create favourable conditions for domestic and
especially foreign investments.
high-TECh fuTurE
It is important to note that in the near future
Astana will become the centre for technological
progress; it will become the capital city
of the information community, i.e. a national
innovation centre.
Under certain conditions it is possible to
construct new high tech and science clusters
focused on alternative energy and energy
efficiency, biotechnology and medicine, information,
telecommunication and electronic
technologies. Even now, arrangements are
being made to increase competitiveness and
create equal opportunities.
At the moment the global economic development
means transitioning from industrial and
post-industrial types of development based
on intellectual resources, to knowledgebased
and high technologies. Thus, economy
diversification and utilization of intellectual
resources are perceived as the main directions
for the further development of Astana City’s
competitive advantages.
Innovative economic development implies
both modernization of the existing city and
suburban enterprises, and establishment of
new high-tech, science-intensive industries
with high added value.
With this goal in mind, a modern Astana
university and scientific complex named after
President Nazarbayev has already been built.
The ”New University of Astana” project will
give the young citizens of Kazakhstan an
opportunity to receive an education equal
to that of the highest standards in the world
without having to leave the country.
Advanced high-tech production and innovative
policies require an increase in manpower
resources, the prioritization of education and
science and the creation of an innovation
system. For this reason, a satellite science
town in the suburbs of Astana will soon be
founded. The town will consist of a large
techno-park with a technical university,
research centres and numerous small innovation
enterprises, pooled into several clusters
of information, telecommunication, high tech
and science-intensive industries.
Astana authorities will merge neighbouring
enterprises with other related institutions: universities,
research centres, techno-parks. To
financially support the cluster development
and the improvement of the quality of life, the
city authorities aim to make a profit through
the cost reduction of the merged enterprises.
Public and private research institutes, design
bureaus, higher educational institutions,
science and technology enterprises, and state
institutes for micro-financing serve as the
basis for high-tech, IT, education and biotechnological
cluster development in Astana.
The focus will be on the science-intensive
cluster creation to make Astana the national
centre for sustainable production, technology,
education and science-intensive activities of
Kazakhstan.
Thus, in the near future Astana will become a
completely transformed innovative city in the
heart of Eurasia which serves as a model for
future city-building and opens huge possibilities
for foreign investors.