Azerbaijan, Baku, April 26 /Trend, A.Akhundov/
Current and future potential of agriculture in Azerbaijan allows to increase the share of value added price in country's GDP from the current 5.4 percent to 25-30 percent, said the chairman of the Azerbaijani parliamentary committee on agrarian policy Eldar Ibrahimov was quoted as saying in the official press Tuesday.
He said for the effective use of this potential, firstly it is necessary to achieve comprehensive development of agriculture, identifying priority areas for agricultural development, to implement measures for their development, produce competitive products through the use of innovative technologies and thus ensure food security at the expense of local production, as well as gain access to foreign markets.
In particular, he said, there is a need to manufacture agricultural machinery and equipment.
Modern plants can be built in the regions, as well as the existing enterprises and workshops can be upgraded, said Ibrahimov.
He said the country has financial opportunities to implement these measures.
"Using the additional 100-200,000 hectares will significantly increase grain production, which would be a great contribution to covering grain needs of the population at the expense of local production," said Ibrahimov.
In addition, he said, that the count showed that the processing of 300,000 tons of cotton (the country has the potential to effortlessly produce such volume) to the final consumer product will provide added value at 1.5 billion manat.
He said one of the important measures in the new stage of agrarian policy was the establishment of Aqrolizinq JSC.
"Since its establishment in 2005, Aqrolizinq leased 10,951 units of agricultural machinery, including 990 combine harvesters, 3,045 tractors, 6,975 units of agricultural machinery and trailers for different purposes," said Ibrahimov.