The main goal of the program is to provide land with irrigation water on an area of 3.5 million hectares. At present, the area of irrigated land is 1.4 million hectares. At the same time, 600 thousand hectares of irrigated lands that are out of circulation will be restored, and 1.5 million hectares of new ones will be introduced.

“What do we get from this? We plan that labor productivity per person will increase from 2.3 million tenge to 5.9 million tenge, and about 300 thousand new jobs will be created. At the same time, the growth of gross revenues of irrigated lands by 2028 will amount to 3,727 billion tenge,” said Abishev.

If today irrigated land makes up 7% of the total cultivated area and 40% of the gross agricultural product is produced on these irrigated lands, while increasing the area of irrigated land to 3.5 million hectares, the share of irrigated land in the total cultivated area will reach 15%, and 80% of the gross agricultural product will give irrigated land. In addition, it is planned that 70% of products will be exported abroad.

Abishev also spoke in more detail about the mechanism for providing land with irrigation water.

“Over the past five years, an average of about seven billion tenge a year was spent on restoring the water infrastructure. To provide irrigated land with water on an area of 3.5 million hectares, 1.2 trillion tenge is necessary. If this amount is divided by seven, then we will need over 100 years to reach the goal. But the time does not wait. To achieve this global goal, it is necessary to apply the principle of public-private partnership. This is the essence of the new program,” the committee chairman noted.

In addition, it was indicated that the practice of using the mechanism of public-private partnership is widely used throughout the world: supported by international financial centers, the business community and the agricultural sector.