Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Kazakhstan has reported an increasing scale of illegal immigration. Minister of Economy and Budget Planning Yerbolat Dossayev said Monday that the number of illegal immigrants has reached 300,000 annually.

Speaking in parliament, Dossayev said the struggle against illegal migration will become one of the main areas of the government's activity.

According to him, a bill on amendments and addenda to some legislative acts of Kazakhstan on the issues of labor migration has already been submitted to the Majilis, the lower chamber of the Kazakh parliament.

The draft law envisions improvement of the procedure of attracting labor migrants to Kazakhstan. The bill also shows the areas in which those foreign citizens will be able to receive work permits.

"To improve the control and action against illegal migration we have to develop a comprehensive plan for solving the migration problem, amend the legislation in the sphere of migration control and improve the interagency action with relevant bodies of foreign countries on the issues of counteraction to illegal migration," Dossayev noted.

According to Dossayev, amendments can also be made to the law 'On state control and supervision' and 'On the issue of inspection procedures in the sphere of migration control'.

Earlier, the Kazakh Labor Ministry forecasted that the inflow of migrants to Kazakhstan will hit 500,000 in 2015.

Experts believe migrants' flow to Kazakhstan is mainly due to the country's economic growth being higher than that in other Central Asian countries. Thus, the labor market of Kazakhstan is attractive for migrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China.

Earlier, head of the Kyrgyz state-run Center for Employment of Citizens Abroad Nurdin Tinayev said that about 70.000 citizens of Kyrgyzstan work in Kazakhstan.