Russia and Kazakhstan make their digital economies complementary

In January, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev delivered a speech to the people, in which he outlined the new development opportunities in the conditions of the fourth industrial revolution. According to Nazarbayev, the world enters the era of the fourth industrial revolution, an era of profound and rapid changes - technological, economic and social ones - and it they should be prepared for global changes. The task of entering the top 30 of the most developed countries in the world is being realized through the Kazakhstan 2050 Strategy and the National Plan '100 concrete steps', 60 of which have already been taken, and the rest are of a long-term nature and are being implemented systematically. The Industrialization Program and the comprehensive program 'Digital Kazakhstan' are also being implemented.

Commenting on the message, the director of the Institute of Regional Problems, Dmitry Zhuravlev, said that the most difficult part of it is human capital: "Industry and economy should be built and a man should be raised. This is more complicated. Kazakhstan has been moving in this direction consistently and for a long time. This tree was planted long before the writing of the address. The new economic way is not just the appearance of some technological mechanisms, this is when technological mechanisms make a qualitative difference."

According to Dmitry Zhuravlev, the efforts to transform the digital economy from a very expensive and beautiful toy into a practical mechanism is an important element of the address: "Today the digital economy is a laser-guided broom - big, complex and expensive. And Kazakhstan is trying to turn a laser-guided broom into space ship within a clear time frame."

Deputy Director of the Institute of Internet Development Ekaterina Lobanova, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, explained that the digital economy is classic economic branches that has been "stitched together" with IT technologies: "If we talk about health care, it's about telemedicine services, a remote communication between a doctor and a patient. In this case a patient should be confident that he will see a certified doctor on the other side of the monitor. In Russia, for example, now licenses for medical activity are issued to rooms, to hospitals.

If we talk about the digital economy and future finances, its prototype can be a bank without any offices, which users receive the same set of services remotely, while using their own computers, like in a usual bank with offices which require the presence of its customers.

We are already in this digital economy. This is inevitable. Technologies will develop further. It would require addressing a number of basic issues. For example, the identification of people, so we could understand who is communicating with who, because they will not see each other physically. In addition, we should understand how to analyze big data, process and extract the information which will help in future development."

Speaking about the interaction of Russia and Kazakhstan in the IT sphere, Ekaterina Lobanova noted: "We are part of the Eurasian Union, and we need to come to a common understanding, including on e-commerce, regulate customs duties and import of goods to be on an equal footing, In addition, interstate cooperation, which can also be reduced to paperless technologies, is interesting Now Russia is  five years ahead of Kazakhstan in developing a digital economy. But Nazarbayev's address is in line with what is happening in Russia, with Russia's development, with the priority sectors of development noted in our document on the digital economy development. The programs are complementary. I think that our colleagues will catch up soon, and we will move forward together. But we need people who will move all these processes. We need our youth, which will start technological startups, to want stay here instead of going abroad. It requires creating conditions for healthy competition between companies, introducing tax incentives to test new technologies."