Kazakhstan's new city Alatau - what changes are expected

The administration of Almaty region shared its plans on the development of the newly established Alatau city, Kazinform News Agency reports.

Former Zhetygen village, which was granted the status of a city and renamed as Alatau, is located 47 kilometers to the north of the center of Almaty. 25,000 people lived here before the change of its status, while now, with the accession of the nearby settlements its population reached 52,000.

In line with the President’s decree, the newly established Alatau city will unite all of our four villages – Zhetygen, Zhana-arna, Kuigan and Enbek, as well as parts of Konayev city and Talgar district. Alatau is called to turn into the largest center of the CIS providing highly sophisticated services in finance, business, trade, production, logistics, education, healthcare, sport, tourism and entertainment, says Nurlan Abilev, governor of the former Zhetygen district.

In his words, the establishment of the new city will jump-start the district’s and region’s economy. Numerous financial institutions will operate in Alatau, new education and healthcare facilities will be built, new productions and new jobs to be created.

The total area of the new city is 88,000 hectares. The infrastructure project launched at the initiative of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev aims at the development of the country’s transit and transport potential.

The territory of Alatau will be divided into four areas:

Gate – international business center

Golden – international center for education, healthcare and sport

Growing – export-oriented industrial and logistics center with the international aero-hub

Green – the center for leisure, entertainment and tourism, which will be located along Almaty-Konayev highway

Earlier, the Government of Kazakhstan decided to expand the territory of the SEZ G4 from 30,000 to 96,500 hectares and rename it as SEZ Alatau.

As per the general layout, the population of Alatau will surge to 2 million by 2050. The aims at the achievement of the following target indicators:

• Creation of 1 million jobs
• Attraction of 4 million tourists per year, with 60% of foreigners
• Construction of 3.6 million square meters of area for doing business