Uzbekistan, Tashkent, 25 November / corr Trend T.Zhukov / Uzbekistan stores agricultural products to provide population with staple foodstuff in winter.
By 1 December, 25,000 tons of various products - potatoes, onion, rice, flour, vegetable oil, dried fruits, melons and gourds will be stored up, Uzulgurjisavdoinvest (Uzopttorginvest), Association of Ventures of Wholesale Trade told Trend . Supplies of food and agricultural products will enable to impede groundless increase of prices of these products, Zafar Aliyev, chairman of the association said.
From December 2008 to May 2009, systematic presentation of reserves of fruit and vegetable products and potatoes will be launched to sell them to the republic's residents. An emphasis will be put mainly on provision of kindergartens, hospitals, schools and other social institution with agricultural products. Ventures of the Association intend to sell to consumers 200,000 tons of flour, 35,000 tons of vegetable oil, 11,000 tons of sugar, more than 10,000 tons of rice and other foodstuff in the amount of 160bln soums (over $117.6mln) by the end of the year.
"Global economic crisis affected all countries. As early as in summer, when few people talked about this problem, our government and President of republic were one of the first to focus on stable provision of food market and organization of work to store up fruit and vegetable products," Fayziyev said.
Presently, measures are being taken to conclude contracts to import important foodstuff with the help of revenues from the export of agricultural products. According to reports of the association, revenues from export of mainly fruit and vegetable totaled $30mln in 2008. Agricultural products in the amount of $11.5mln were exported to Russia and Kazakhstan. Funds, earned from export of agricultural products, are directed to import of flour, rice and vegetable oil.
Earnings from export of vegetables and fruit are used to import goods, which are not produced or their production is restricted in the republic, Fayziyev said. Presently, more than 5,000 tons of rice, 5,500 tons of vegetable oil and 500 tons of other products have already been imported. The measures are being taken to import 10,000 tons of rice from Thailand.
According to the Uzbek State Committee of Statistics (USCS), share of foodstuff in total volume of import of the republic made up 7.9% over nine months of 2008 (by 14.3% more than the same period of 2007). Main part of foodstuff was bought from the CIS countries.
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