Kazakh PM: Farmers need to raise competitive capacity of goods
As per President Nursultan Nazarbayev's instructions, the Government is mainly working on accomplishment of the target to make Kazakhstan the largest agricultural export producer. To this end, the state program for development of the agro-industrial complex, that specifies the basic mechanisms to support agriculture, was adopted early this year.
The government creates conditions to increase the competitiveness of the industry. Over the last 5 years, the extent of direct state aid has almost tripled, and consistent actions to increase crop yield and labor productivity are underway. As a result of a new subsidy scheme, the areas of high-quality seedings and the use of fertilizers have rebounded by over 50 percent.
To increase the export potential, JSC "Prodcorporation" has been transformed into an operator promoting domestic agricultural products in foreign markets. Owing to the agreements reached by the Head of State, China, UAE, Iran and others foreign markets are opening.
The government optimizes the processes of granting public services in the field of agroindustrial complex, shortens time periods and lists of documents, eliminates duplicative procedures. It is planned to automatize the process of granting three types of subsidies this year. Next year, the work for the other 15 types of subsidies will be completed.
The Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Agriculture, Askar Myrzakhmetov, reported on the results of the state program for development of agro-industrial complex for the first six months. The overall agricultural production has increased by 3.1% as compared to the same period last year. At the same time, livestock and crop production has enlarged by 3.1 and 2.2 percent respectively. The food production has grown by 7.5% over that period.
Kumar Aksakalov, the Region Governor, reported on development of the agro-industrial complex. The heads of the regional farming enterprises and agricultural associations made their speeches.
Agricultural producers made proposals for import and export policy, veterinary safety in animal husbandry, subsidies and insurance in plant growing, as well as diesel fuel and fertilizers provision.
Summarizing the meeting, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Bakytzhan Sagintayev, instructed the Ministry of National Economy to address the taxation issues as to the agricultural producers and the domestic manufacturers of agricultural machinery. According to him, the Ministry of Agriculture needs to take the control over further improvement of subsidy mechanisms. The KazAgro Holding was charged with consideration of the investment projects proposed by the agrarians.