How much do they pay for an idea?

Author: Darmen Sadvakassov

Managing Partner Dasco Consulting Group

One of the promising areas of development in Kazakhstan is the creative economy. It includes industries directly related to intellectual activity: culture and creativity, the digital sphere, Internet projects, consulting, tourism, sports, advertising, design and so on.

The creative economy can account for up to 47% of the gross regional product of successful cities. In some countries the share of creative industries in the economy even exceeds the share of traditional industries. In Kazakhstan, this indicator is still about 14.5% of the output in the service sector. At the same time the system of monitoring of this sphere has not been worked out yet. And there is nothing surprising here, because even in the UN statistics on the creative industries began to be kept only since 2009.

It is assumed that the "creative" economy accounts for about 3% of global GDP, but it employs only 1% of the world's population. Great Britain - the European flagship of creative economy - produces $130 billion worth of products in this area annually, China - $160-170 billion. Most other countries, including Kazakhstan, have a lot to strive for!

In terms of industries, we can note that revenues from sales of computer games in the world have already exceeded $110 billion, international film distribution collects about $50 billion annually, music companies - about $ 20 billion.

The obvious difficulties in the development of the sphere are its technological nature, the presence of a high degree of uncertainty in the results and evaluation of work, and the acute need for constant generation of new ideas. It is this framework that often limits the number of people and companies involved in the creative business. According to calculations of the British Council, only 3.9% of the total number of registered businesses in Kazakhstan meet the parameters of the creative industry.

A thoughtful stimulation of the creative economy can lead to enormous positive changes in the market of Kazakhstani services. A key vector of this development could be the entry of domestic intellectual companies into international markets, which will generate up to 1 trillion U.S. dollars in the next decade.