The Kazakh government plans to attract another major taxi service to the country in order to combat exorbitant taxi fares, said Minister of Digital Development Bagdat Mussin during a Majilis meeting, QazMonitor reports.
Currently, the Russian Yandex.Taxi owns the monopoly on taxi services, occupying 70-80% of the market in large cities, like Astana and Almaty.
Deputy Yelnur Bisembayev added that 200,000 out of 500,000 people employed in online services in Kazakhstan are working for the company.
“Yandex takes a commission of 18-20% from the cab drivers, which is too much,” said Bisembayev. “Two hundred thousand Kazakh citizens pay commission to a foreign budget.”
According to Bolat Sambetov, deputy chairman of the Agency for Competition Protection and Development (ACPD), "since the beginning of the year, the ACPD has received a lot of complaints about Yandex.Taxi regarding the commission. In this regard, the agency is conducting two investigations.”
From a labor standpoint, in case of a sanction, the same 200,000 employees will be left without a job.
A competitive market is needed here, said Mussin. At the moment, the ministry is negotiating with the Chinese cab service DiDi to ensure its re-entry into the Kazakh market as a second player.
If the deal goes through, Kazakhstan would have two of the three largest global taxi services operating in the domestic market, with the other being Uber.