Kazakhstan is setting the aim of being put on the list of 50 most developed countries, President Nursultan Nazarbayev said on Monday. According to the president, “time is coming when the growth of the Kazakh economy makes it possible to set principally new tasks for the modernization of the society and the state”. Over the past seven years economy has been growing nine to ten percent a year on the average. GDP per capita has grown three times, from 1,130 dollars in 1999 to 3,400 dollars in 2005. Average monthly salaries, pensions and scholarships have also grown almost threefold. Healthcare expenditures have increased four times, while expenditures on science and education have grown threefold. “We are now setting new aims and tasks,” Nazarbayev said at a congress of the federation of the Kazakh trade unions. “Our aim is to rank among 50 most developed countries with high living standards,” the president emphasized. According to the Kazakh leader “the oil and gas sector, as well as all extractive industries” are the main donors in the implementation of that task. By 2012, Kazakhstan seeks to join the list of ten world exporters of oil. “The total amount of industrial production should grow more than twofold,” the president believes. “By the early 2010s, its share in the structure of GDP will grow by 40 percent as compared with 2005,” the Kazakh leader said. In the early 1990s, Kazakhstan had a modest 109th place as concerns competitiveness among the U.N. member-states. (Itar-Tass)