Contacts:
Jan Pakulski
Tel: (202) 473-1797
Fax: (202) 522-3362
WASHINGTON, April 3, 1997 — The World Bank today approved a US$10 million loan to Kazakstan to help finance a Real Estate Registration Pilot Project that will design and test models for establishing a unified real estate registration system. The project will encourage the development of land and real estate markets in Kazakstan.
Since independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakstan has embarked on a transition to a market economy. An important part of the country's transition is the privatization of land and real estate rights and the clarification of those rights. The Bank-assisted project will help to create a system that will uniformly record ownership and other rights in land and real estate.
The project's main objectives are to:
- Increase security for rights to land and ownership of real estate, thereby encouraging private sector development, increasing investment, and promoting environmentally sustainable development practices;
- Improve land and real estate transactions, increase the security of these transactions, and reduce their cost; and
- Promote the development of credit systems by providing lending institutions with an authoritative source of security through mortgaging.
The project consists of the following three components and includes US$1.5 million for project preparation.
Institution Building (US$2.06 million) will:
- Help the Ministry of Justice to implement and manage the new registration system through technical assistance and training; and
- Improve legal aspects of real estate registration by establishing links to land titling and mapping, and expanding the use of information technology.
Registration System (US$7.91 million) will:
- Establish real estate registration offices in the regional offices of the Ministry of Justice; and
- Test operational procedures for these offices, including the format of the registration book, standard forms for basic registration transactions, and document handling procedures.
Map Production (US$730,000) will:
- Test the use of digital maps in supporting the registration system to determine whether further investment in technology is needed for the expansion of the system nation-wide; and
- Provide land survey equipment to the State Land Committee to improve the accuracy of information for the registration of land.
The regions of Almaty and Akmola, and Almaty city have been selected for the pilot project.
The total project costs are US$13.28 million, including US$1.08 million in physical and price contingencies. The Bank's loan of US$10 million will finance 75 percent of total project costs. The Government of Kazakstan will contribute US$3.3 million to finance the costs of staff and offices for the registration units.
The loan will be at the Bank's standard variable interest rate with a 20-year maturity, including a five-year grace period.
Since Kazakstan joined the World Bank in July 1992, Bank commitments total US$959 million for 13 projects. |
