3 out of 5 square meters of housing in Kazakhstan falls on cities and the same proportion falls on the birth rate, reports zakon.kz with reference to the monitoring agency Energyprom.kz.

At the end of the first quarter of 2021, a trend of gradual improvement in indicators in basic industries was noted. The engine of the economy is the real sector, where, according to the official portal of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, construction showed itself the best (plus 13.1%). For comparison: the growth in the manufacturing industry was plus 7.5%, in agriculture – plus 2.8%.

For the first quarter of this year, the volume of construction work in the Republic of Kazakhstan amounted to 514.1 billion tenge. It is noteworthy that the growth in the sector is to the greatest extent ensured by an increase in the volume of construction of residential buildings (by 31.3% per year, or by 25.4 billion tenge). At the same time, construction in the segment of non-residential buildings is stalling.

The same picture was observed in the “coronavirus” 2020, when the volume of construction in the residential sector reached 881.2 billion tenge – 35.3% more than a year earlier.

Housing construction in the Republic of Kazakhstan is growing in direct proportion to the available mortgage lending under state programs. Thus, breakthrough growth in the sector began in 2015–2016, with the introduction of the Nurly Zhol State Infrastructure Development Program.

Further, the system program, which is still working today, came into effect – the successor to Nurly Zher, which combined new mechanisms to support housing construction and operated according to the previously adopted Nurly Zhol and the Regional Development Program. The key operator of Nurly Zher is Otbasy Bank.

At the same time, in 2015, the share of loans through housing construction savings of Otbasy Bank (at that time – House Construction Savings Bank of Kazakhstan), for the first time exceeded one third of the portfolio of all mortgage loans in Kazakhstan. Today the bank’s share in the mortgage portfolio is already about 60%.

As a reminder, the UN Sustainable Development Goal, within the framework of SDG 11 “Ensuring inclusiveness, security, resilience and environmental sustainability of cities and human settlements”, includes the following task: “By 2030, expand the scope of inclusive and environmentally sustainable urbanization and opportunities for integrated and sustainable human settlements planning “.

The key criterion here is the ratio of housing development to population growth rates. In general, urbanization in the Republic of Kazakhstan is developing at a rapid pace, and the correlation between development and birth rate is obvious.

Thus, the housing stock of the Republic of Kazakhstan by the beginning of this year reached 373.3 million square meters. m – 2.5% more than a year earlier. Of these, cities account for 64%, against 63% five years ago and less than 58% ten years earlier.

The provision of the population with housing as a result amounted to 22.6 square meters. m per person, while in cities the figure rose to 25 sq. m, in villages – only up to 19.3 sq. m per resident.

At the same time, 425.6 thousand children were born in the country in 2020, plus 5.6% over the previous year. The share of children born in cities was 58.4% of the total. For comparison: five years earlier the indicator reached 56.6%, a decade ago – only 55.4%.

As a result, the population of the Republic of Kazakhstan by the beginning of this year had already reached 18.9 million people, which is 1.3% more than a year earlier. Of these, 11.1 million people live in cities: this is already 59.1% of the Republic of Kazakhstan, against 57% five years earlier and 54.6% ten years ago.