The tax collection by the Kazakh State Revenues Ministry has increased by 59.3 per cent since 1998, State Revenues Minister Zeynulla Kakimzhanov today told in a report on the work of the fiscal bodies and improvement of the tax and customs service in 1999-2000. The ministry collected 283.15bn tenge in taxes in 1998, 341.86bn tenge in 1999 and 544.67bn tenge in 2000, Kakimzhanov said. At the same time, the budget revenues from Kazakhstan's 100 major taxpayers grew by 109.5 per cent in the same period. According to the ministry, the major taxpayers paid 98.6bn tenge in taxes in 1998, 117.85bn tenge in 1999 and 246.87bn tenge in 2000. In addition, Kakimzhanov said that investment in basic capital grew from 8.4 per cent in 1997 to 20 per cent in 2000.The economy has grown, the minister said, because of the fall in the ratio of production cost to production volume in the industrial sector from 55 per cent in 1998 down to 40 per cent in 2000. The State Revenues Ministry collects taxes and non-tax payments except Russia's payment for leasing the Baykonur space vehicle launch site and payments for the lease and sale of state property. (Interfax-Kazakhstan) 'NO POLITICAL PRISONERS IN AZERBAIJAN' 11 May A senior official of the Presidential Executive in Azerbaijan, Fuad Aleskerov, has affirmed that there are no political prisoners being held in the country. He said Azerbaijan had created a democratic legal system in a very short time since independence. Mr Aleskerov was speaking as a Council of Europe team arrived in Baku to investigate the issue; a local Azeri human rights group handed the Council of Europe team a list of 207 detainees whom it considers to be political prisoners. (BBC)