During the trip to Aktobe region, Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Trade and Integration Serik Zhumangarin visited agricultural enterprises of the region and met with business representatives, press service of the Ministry of Trade and Integration reports.
In the region, with the development of the industrial sector, which gives almost 40% of the region's income, the share of agriculture is very small - about 6%, retail trade - 16.2%. The problems of the region's agrarians are generally similar to other regions of Kazakhstan: how to put agricultural processing on its feet in order to provide its region with food of its own production and send it for export, find enough water for watering and raising livestock, and keep farmers in rural areas. But the specifics of the climate and the peculiarities of the location form their direction of development: with the presence of their own sunflower oil producer, some of the lowest prices for this product are here - 703 tenge on average over the last month. Breeding horse breeding is developed, but at the same time there is a noticeable gap between production and the demand of the population for dairy products and poultry meat. Who can promote the food brand of Kazakhstan in foreign markets and what barriers prevent the full-fledged production and sale of their own food products, the businessmen said.
The meeting took place at the enterprise of a wide range of activities of "Ramadan Kus". LLP. The company is engaged in grain processing, production of eggs and chicken, flour, pasta and bakery products. The capacity of the enterprise is 200 million eggs per year and 20 tons of poultry meat in one and a half to two months.
We ask you to consider the possibility of introducing a quota for border enterprises who do not have the opportunity to deliver raw materials by rail", - said Yertay Kadyr, director of "Ramadan Kus" LLP.
Nurlan Sagnalin, founder of the company "Aktep", engaged in vegetable growing, voiced several questions at once. They concerned the possibility of increasing the limit for subsidizing the volume of mineral fertilizers per 1 hectare of land during spring field work, subsidizing the work on sideral steam in crop rotation, opening meat exports to China and EU markets, supporting the construction of a plant for processing hides.
We were approached by three companies from Malaysia, the USA and China. All of them are interested in building a gelatin production plant. The preliminary cost of the project at the investment stage is $40 million. The project provides for the production of 2.5 thousand tons of gelatin per year, of which 90% is food, 10% is medical. The plan is to reach this nominal capacity in the third year of production, with further expansion. Approximately 600 thousand hides will be purchased per year. We are considering the construction of the plant in the south of Kazakhstan, where cattle are mainly raised. Taking into account the problems of the disposal of hides faced by farmers after the restriction of their exports, and the environmental damage they cause, we ask you to consider making changes to the Rules for subsidizing the Ministry of Agriculture projects for deep processing of hides", - the entrepreneur said.
Serik Zhumangarin supported the businessman's proposal, noting that the country needs such projects to create deep-processing goods. For his part, Vice Minister of Agriculture Yerbol Taszhurekov said that the Rules of investment subsidies already provide for a passport for the construction of a plant for deep processing of wool with a share of compensation of up to 25% of investment investments, but on condition that the volume of processing will be 2 thousand or more hides per day. As for the possibility of exporting chilled meat to the markets of China and the EU, the Vice Minister of Agriculture replied that active work is underway to open the export markets of Europe and China for the supply of livestock products.
Kanat Tapaev, director of "Novo-Aljansky Melkombinat", LLP, offered the opportunity to increase the volume of exports of non-primary goods and reduce the cost of exporters without state support measures.
Every day 5 trains from Western Europe to China and back pass through the Aktobe region. From Europe, about 30-40% of containers are returned empty. They follow to the port of Lianyungang, this is the south of China, where there are consumers of our products - flour, pasta. The Kazakh operator provides us with one container with a capacity of 40 tons for $ 3.5 thousand, since the cost of delivery and return of the container is included in the tariff. We found out that Chinese operators have one-way cargo delivery, from Aktobe to China, costs $1000 and below. If you can help us sign contracts directly with Chinese container operators, we could ship up to 1,000 tons of our goods per month. Plus, we are ready to organize a transshipment point for receiving and sending export goods from other manufacturers of the Aktobe region - canned food, beverages, wine and vodka products. Now, due to the high cost of logistics, we ship our products to China in a small volume", - he informed.
Serik Zhumangarin thanked the businessmen for their sensible proposals, instructing the Director General of the QazTrade Trade Policy Development Center Rustam Asulbek to work out the issues of exporters, and Vice Minister of Agriculture Yerbol Taszhurekov to work on agriculture.
The Aktobe region is well developed in terms of transport infrastructure, and its geographical location creates favorable conditions for processing Eurasian commodity flows, as well as organizing export and import transportation to the countries of Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and the Russian Federation. In early August, we invited a large delegation of Afghan businessmen to Kazakhstan, they want to trade directly with Kazakhstan. And due to the transport location of trade routes, new trade routes are beneficial for Aktobe business. We are doing a lot of work with China, we have built a powerful bonded warehouse on the border in Alashankou. There are about seven milling plants for wheat processing, with a total capacity of about 1 million tons per year. We can already supply 1.5 million tons of grain to China. This is very important for us, because today the traditional markets have become too crowded. In addition, after the visit of the Secretary of the Party Committee of XUAR Ma Sinzhui to Kazakhstan, we are actively developing cooperation with Xinjiang. In August, the "China-Eurasia", exhibition will be held in Urumqi, I invite everyone who has export potential to visit it with me", - the Deputy Prime Minister said.
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