The damage to business in during the riots amounted to almost 104 billion tenge (US$240 million), according to the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs. 1,615 affected entities were recorded in 11 regions of the country. More than 1,500 entrepreneurs in Almaty suffered the most losses. Once the police recorded the damage caused to them, many businesspeople began to restore their boutiques, shops and other facilities.
“As you can see, we are currently restoring showcases. We are working very hard. Our goal is to resume trade operations, because everybody needs to feed their families and pay loans. We can resume our activity only with the permission of the state authorities. For this purpose, we have just recorded everything on video. It gives us the right to continue cleaning and restoration work,” said Sergey Ivanov, director of a shopping center.
According to the damage assessment rules, entrepreneurs need to submit an application with a photo and video proof and indicate the amount of damage on the infokazakhstan.kz website, the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs reported. After that, they will be visited by a commission of appraisers.
“They are official experts that have a license from the Kazakh Chamber of Appraisers. They already have an assessment methodology, which is also used in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan for similar events. Once the financial loss is confirmed, the fund will compensate it to these entrepreneurs upon submission of all necessary documents,” noted Maksim Baryshev, Chairperson of the Regional Council of the Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Almaty.
In the meantime, about a billion tenge (US$2.3 million) had already been received by the fund to support the affected businesses. It was opened on the initiative of Kazakh entrepreneurs. The Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs informed that everyone can donate there. All data on the movement of money are publicly available. In turn, the fund's supervisory board, which consists of 30 entrepreneurs, will control the distribution of each tenge.
Translation by Assem Zhanmukhanova
Editing by Galiya Khassenkhanova
