UPDATE 3-Kazakhstan to boost stimulus package to $25 bln

* Years of 10 percent per annum growth gone

* Signs of low level social unrest

* Infrastructure projects, capital injections (Adds details, analyst comment)

By Raushan Nurshayeva

ASTANA, March 6 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan will add $4 billion to its existing $21 billion economic stimulus package, the president of Central Asia's biggest economy said on Friday as he called for unity in the face of the global downturn. Oil is Kazakhstan's key export and its high price helped the economy grow 10 percent a year on average between 2000 and 2007. Now that growth has gone there have been small-scale public protests and a rise in crime.

"It is in such times that we see growth in theft, burglaries, robberies - we have seen it before," President Nursultan Nazarbayev said in his annual address to the nation.

"During these hard times, we must do everything to ensure security of our people," he said, urging police, often criticised for corruption, to get rid of their "bad habits" and fight crime.

Despite Western criticism over democracy and elections, Nazarbayev, in power since 1989, has been genuinely popular in his nation of 16 millions as Kazakhstan turned into a vibrant consumer society and living standards improved steadily.

That is quickly changing as people's incomes are eroded by the economic slowdown.

In his address, Nazarbayev said the state would combat unemployment by pressing ahead with large projects such as the modernisation of roads used to transit cargo from China to Europe and the building new power plants.

He said money would be spent on projects aimed at increasing exports and reducing imports.

"According to our estimates, the export specialisation will allow for the creation of 500,000 new jobs," Nazarbayev said.

While public discontent has been relatively low key, many people are angry about unfinished residential construction projects in which they have invested, such as the Sairan project in the commercial hub Almaty.

"The failure of the Sairan project is becoming an increasingly important political issue for the government," Eurasia Group think-tank said in a research note on Friday.

"Although mass social unrest is not on the agenda, rising social discontent around failed individual investments in Sairan is gaining increasing government attention."

Kazakhstan, the region's biggest oil producer, has long seen itself as an island of stability in the otherwise volatile Central Asian region.

The $21 billion economic rescue package announced last year was aimed at providing capital injections for banks and loans to key sectors and small businesses.

Analysts say the country's $100 billion economy might already be in recession citing indicators such as industrial output which shrank 1.8 percent year-on-year in January.

"I think it would be right in 2009-2010 to use the commodity sector revenues, traditionally diverted to the National Fund, to implement a new program that I will announce," "Those will total 600 billion tenge ($4 billion)."

"At the same time we will preserve the country's gross reserves at today's level of $47 billion," he said. (Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Matthew Jones)