Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev stressed that the implementation of the Digital Kazakhstan State Program is under special control of the Head of State. A significant economic effect is expected as part of the program’s implementation, which has the potential to increase the value added as well as reduce costs in the economy.

Over the past year of the program implementation, a positive trend has been recorded in many areas. The legislative base has been improved, the approaches to production have been optimized, business and state administration have been developed. At the same time, in order to increase the efficiency of the implementation of the Government’s digital agenda, the need for the central and local executive bodies to develop a uniform methodology for monitoring and evaluating the effects of digitalization has been expressed.

Ministry of Information and Communications is tasked to determine the potential for digitalization in certain sectors of the economy and develop a unified methodology for calculating the efficiency of digitalization projects, taking into account the actual cost reduction. In addition, the ministry needs to speed up the development of a draft law on the use of digital technologies with government agencies and the IT community.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Digital Kazakhstan State Program is being implemented in five key areas and includes 17 initiatives and 120 events. In 2018, the entire list of planned activities (20 items) was fully implemented.

In the first direction “Digitization of Industries” — using the elements of Industry 4.0 at the backbone enterprises of the fuel and energy, and mining and metallurgical complexes, the following results were achieved:

labor productivity increased by an average of 10%;
energy savings of up to 33% achieved at certain industries;
equipment utilization rate increased to 50%.

Projects "Intellectual field" and "Digital mine" were introduced at seven large mineral deposits. In 2019, it is planned to increase the number of objects using these systems to 12.

In the mining industry, the transition of 102 enterprises to "transparent" production has started. As part of the digitalization of transport and logistics, the project "Intelligent Transport System" is being implemented. A road asset management system is also being implemented, within which 16 mobile road laboratories have been launched.

As part of the digitalization of the agro-industrial complex, elements of precision farming were introduced in 14 pilot farms in the country. This made it possible to reduce the costs of farmers by an average of 15-20% and increase the yield by 2.5 times. In 2019, it is planned to bring the number of “smart farms” to 500 farms.

Another major direction of the program is the development of online trade. Thus, at the legislative level, tax concessions are provided to e-commerce entities. They have already taken advantage of 331 new e-commerce entity. One of the world's trends began to develop in Kazakhstan — a contactless payment service using a mobile phone. So, in late November 2018, six large banks of the country were connected to the service in a pilot mode.

Within the “Transition to a Digital State” direction, digitalization covers all levels of education. Today 64% of all preschool organizations accept applications in electronic form. In 94% of schools students use electronic diaries and academic record books. In general, the digitization of the education system has reduced the gap in the quality of education between rural and urban schools by more than 30%.

As part of the digitalization of healthcare, 99.2% of the organization of healthcare was transferred to paperless medical documents. About 16.3 million citizens of Kazakhstan have regional electronic health passports. The visits to the doctor and the “live” queues in polyclinics are halved. The time to obtain examination results reduced by 2.5 times. In 2019, it is planned to bring the level of electronic health passports to 100%.

In the social and labor sphere, the electronic labor exchange is successfully functioning. In 2018, more than 533 thousand applicants were employed through the electronic labor exchange, of which 409 thousand were employed for permanent jobs.

The work on the transfer of government services to electronic format continues. At present, 506 public services out of 752 have been automated. The terms for providing services have been reduced by 40% from an average of 12 to 7 days. At the same time, paper circulation was reduced by 60 million reference documents. In 2018, the population received 30 million public services in electronic format. Three migration, eight specialized, 16 digital public service centers have been opened, biometric data collection has been launched in Almaty and Astana. For 2019, it is planned to transfer 80% of public services to electronic format, as well as to open an additional one digital and five migration centers.

In the framework of the state program, special attention is paid to supporting small and medium-sized businesses. In 2018, the ASTANA-1 information system was launched, which allows centralized online monitoring of customs procedures and keeping records of payment of duties. The release of customs declarations has been reduced from several days and hours to 1 minute. As of today, 859 thousand electronic declarations have been registered in the system, of which 85% were issued along the “green corridor” within a minute. The system of "Electronic invoices" and "labeling of goods," which can prevent the "shadow" transactions in the field of trade, has been launched.

“In general, the digital measures implemented in 2018 already have an economic effect of 218 billion tenge. The number of new jobs created as part of digitalization is more than 43 thousand. But the main result of 2018 can be considered that all work processes are established, the areas of responsibility of state bodies are clearly distributed, and national and private companies have a vision of the work ahead. Therefore, we are convinced that this year the economic effect from the introduction of new technologies will be even more tangible,” Abayev reported.

Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development Zhenis Kassymbek, in turn, reported that, under the Digital Kazakhstan Program, priority projects are being implemented in the following sectors: industry, transport, utilities, geology and subsoil use.

On the digitalization of industry in 2018, an audit was completed at seven model factories and road maps for their digitalization were approved. For each company, about 30 events are recommended. Along with this, work is underway to digitize industrial enterprises of the regions. MIID RK together with akimats signed Road maps on the introduction of digital technologies at medium and large industrial facilities. The active work will be continued on digitization of more than 100 enterprises in 2019.

On the task “Digitization of Transport and Logistics,” the Intelligent Transport System project is under implementation. The system can solve a number of issues on the management of road transport complex. For example, in the field of transport control, 12 special automated measuring tools have been introduced. Until the end of 2019, it is planned to launch another 11 tools on new paid sites. By 2021, their total number is planned to be increased to 46.

In order to ensure the compliance of the passenger traffic with the schedule, route and regularity in pilot mode, the Dispatching System of inter-regional and international passenger traffic has been launched. By the end of 2019, over 2,000 buses will be connected via 416 routes.

To improve the condition of the roads in pilot operation, the Road Asset Management System has been implemented. The system predicts the necessary investments and the technical condition of the roads, depending on the chosen repair strategy.

One of the important components of the intellectual transportation is the system of charging, as well as collecting and providing information about the traffic situation to road users. To date, the Toll Collection System has been commissioned at three roads: Almaty – Kapchagai, Almaty – Khorgos and Astana – Temirtau with a total length of 471 km. In general, by 2020 it is planned to introduce a payment for 16 sections of roads and the length of toll roads will be about 6.5 thousand km.

As part of the implementation of the E-SHANYRAQ project, at the end of 2018, the Unified Information System of the utilities industry was launched in pilot mode.

As a result, electronic technical passports of 5,217 apartment houses and 5,767 different metering devices were connected to the system.

A unified construction information system E-QURYLYS is being introduced in the construction industry. The system allows the blockchain mode to control all stages and processes of construction, ranging from the "pit" to the completion of the object’s construction.

Minister of Education and Science Yerlan Sagadiyev said that in accordance with the President’s Address and the Digital Kazakhstan program, a number of measures are being taken to develop digital technologies in education, and a digitalization office has been set up for this.

A typical curriculum on the subject "Information and Communication Technologies" for grades 1-4 has been approved. Thhis academic year the training begins in the third grade. Beginning with the next academic year, the rest of the classes are gradually transferred.

In accordance with the 76th Step of the Plan of the Nation "100 Concrete Steps", the study of the subject "Informatics" in secondary education organizations is carried out in grades 5-9 with one hour per week or 34 hours per year, 10-11 grades have 2 hours per week or 68 hours in year. The content of curricula for the subject “Computer Science” has also been revised; modern programming languages in robotics, 3D modeling and machine learning systems have been introduced at schools.

In order to strengthen the practical orientation of the educational process of students in the ICT disciplines, in 2018, 12 branches of the departments of higher educational institutions were opened at large enterprises. To date, 10 universities have attracted production personnel for practical and laboratory classes. On the basis of six universities, competence centers have been opened to enhance students' digital skills in the areas of information technology, cybersecurity, information security.

In the field of information technology, the volume of government orders for popular specialties increased. So, in 2018 more than 10 thousand grants for IT specialties were allocated.

To implement the paragraph 87 of the State Program, an institute for industrial automation and digitalization on the basis of the Satpayev University is being formed.

The Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the Expansion of Academic and Managerial Independence of Higher Educational Institutions was adopted. The ministry approved more than 20 experimental educational programs in 2019. Since this school year, these programs have been introduced in eight higher education institutions.

Work is also underway to create a national open education platform, where various educational courses will be presented, including 3D modeling, information security, programming, IT languages, etc. Along with this, projects are being implemented to create a unified education and science management system.