Atameken NCE RK held training on the organization of the Altyn Sapa contest and competition-exhibition "The best Product of Kazakhstan"

Atameken NCE RK held a training for the employees of the Regional Chamber of Entrepreneurs (RCE), who are responsible for the organization of "The Best Products of Kazakhstan" competitions and exhibitions and for acceptance of applications and materials for the participation in the competition for the Altyn Sapa Award of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. This training included explanations of the changes made to the competitions.

"Contests, being held in Europe, change or update every three years, this is an invariable rule. The National Chamber has developed and made significant changes to the Altyn Sapa contest, which are approved and included in the Decree of the Head of State. The competition will become more transparent. Such changes as the survey of enterprises on the ground in the regions, online voting, the formation of an independent pool of experts were introduced", - the Managing Director of the Atameken NCE RK Saltanat Abdikarimova explained.

As the organizers of the seminar emphasized, Atameken NCE RK tries to continuously improve the competition, to turn it into a continuous process, considering that the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs contacts the business on a regular basis.

"During the internship in Japan under the program named "Branding and marketing of goods using local resources", while studying enterprises and their methods of work with industry professionals I noted the significant differences in their and our quality competitions. It is visible in different areas: from the cultivation of a flower, for which the Minister of Agriculture of Japan awards personally to the national competition for the quality named after Deming," - Saltanat Abdikarimova stressed.

Having studied this experience, the National Chamber will develop proposals for improvement of the Altyn Sapa contest in the similar line. Also they plan to submit these ideas to the Administration of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Atameken is ready to collect and analyze proposals from the business itself in the regions.

"Competitions should be seen as a support tool for promoting and selling products, as they do in Japan. On the one hand, participation in competitions gives companies feedback from the society, on the other, the enterprise becomes recognizable, familiar, which forms the corresponding demand for its products," - Saltanat Abdikarimova added.

According to Atameken, not only the opening of new productions, but also the promotion of finished products should become priority task for regions and industry associations. New production will be opened if points of demand for products exist.

We should recall that the NCE in October 2018 organizes an exhibition of contestants of "Best Product of Kazakhstan", in parallel with which the National Chamber organizes an exhibition of foreign companies, which we offer to bring methods and technology to small businesses. The purpose of the event is to organize a platform for the exchange of experience, establishing cooperation between producers.

Further, Deputy Chairman of the NCE Management Board Yeldos Ramazanov spoke about the idea of popularization of competitions within the associations

"It would be more expedient if all enterprises participated in the contest within their industry, and then the industry, in the person of industry associations, nominated the best companies for participation in Altyn Sapa. The competition should become the final stage of selecting the best companies. Considering that it is quite complex, with high requirements for the selection of contestants. Industry competitions will become a kind of hardening for enterprises. An important point is that the industry associations themselves should be the organizers. Regional competitions should be held for those sectors that are priority for the region," - Yeldos Ramazanov said.

The accumulated experience of the National League of Consumers of Kazakhstan on quality and safety of products represented by its President Svetlana Romanovskaya as well as the experience on support of export-orientedness of the Kazakhstan Association for Quality and Innovation Management under the leadership of Azat Abdrakhmanov should be taken into account in the course of the work, the NCE consider.

"We need to promote our enterprises and goods not only in the domestic market, but also to outsource them, to work specifically on import substitution and competitiveness. Atameken is waiting for proposals on improvement from the business, also we ask the regions to participate actively," - Yeldos Ramazanov said.

Atameken is not limited to this, we note that after the adoption of the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan on innovations in the competitions, the rules, being approved by the resolution of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Methodology of document evaluation will undergo changes. Why? The evaluation model for the Altyn Sapa contest is based on the model of the European Foundation for Management and Quality for 2009, and it have already undergone changes in 2013. In this connection, the contest model will be updated already in 2018.

Also, Atameken and Bayterek NMH JSC discuss proposals for the placement of the winners of the Altyn Sapa contest in national champions. Together with this, proposals for the opening of demonstration stores ("antenna-shops") are being prepared by the regional akimats in the large cities of the republic. This is a form of promoting regional products by local administrations to other regions. The format of such stores can be very diverse (show-room, exhibitions, fairs, direct sales, etc.), but they must be permanent. At the same time, it is possible to increase the potential of the regional brand through the use of flagship restaurants with original local products.

In addition, for the branding regions, and to increase the recognition of high-quality Kazakhstani products, it is proposed to develop a System for Appellation of Origin of Goods.

We should recall that in April-May in all regions of Kazakhstan Atameken experts will hold seminars on participation in the Altyn Sapa and Best Product of Kazakhstan competitions, where they will explain all the details of the selection.

Notes:

The program of training includes:

- innovations in the Rules for holding an Altyn Sapa competition for the award of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan and into procedure of awarding the titles of laureates, innovations into the "Best Product of Kazakhstan" competition and awarding of diploma holders;

- the draft of new methodical recommendations on the Altyn Sapa competition for the Award of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan;

- practical seminars on the requirements for the design of the competition documents for Altyn Sapa and Best Product of Kazakhstan contests;

- discussion of qualification requirements for experts and maintenance of the Register of Experts;

- familiarization with the Contest Action Plan and media plan;

- instructions on the work of the www.altynsapa.kz site (submission of applications and documents in electronic format).

Thus, the regions now have specialists for advising and accepting competitive materials of entrepreneurs for participating in competitions at the level of the RCE. For all questions of preparing and submitting applications and competitive materials, entrepreneurs can contact the responsible RCE staff in accordance with the attached list.

We recall that the acceptance of applications for participation in the Altyn Sapa competition for the Award of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan and for "The Best Product of Kazakhstan" republican contest-exhibition for the year 2018 has already been announced.

Individual entrepreneurs and legal entities engaged in the production of goods or delivering services (except for the production of weapons and military equipment) in the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan can join the competitions.

The list of organizations which can not take part in the competition include the organizations, in which the state's participation share is more than 50%, as well as organizations in respect of which, in accordance with the established procedure, decisions on the implementation of rehabilitation and bankruptcy procedures were made.

Those who wish to take part in the contests must submit applications and materials (reports) prepared in accordance with the Rules for Registration, Submission and Preliminary Evaluation of Contributor Materials to Regional Chambers of Entrepreneurs or electronically at www.altynsapa.kz before July 1, 2018.