Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Jan. 21
By Mamed Dashdemirov – Trend:
The volume of funds in the Fund for Stabilization of the Internal Consumer Market of Uzbekistan will amount to $150 million in 2018 compared to $100 million last year, the Finance Ministry told Trend.
The funds will be at the disposal of a specially created commission on the monitoring of prices for basic types of socially significant food products. The commission will include representatives of the Ministries of Economics and Finance, the Central Bank, and the State Committee for Privatization, Demonopolization and Development of Competition of Uzbekistan.
The commission is charged with developing a program that envisages uninterrupted supply of basic types of food products to the domestic market, ensuring free competition for the imports of raw materials, taking measures to prevent the creation of an artificial shortage.
The Fund for Stabilization of the Internal Consumer Market of Uzbekistan was established September 2017. Import of socially significant food products, carried out at the expense of the fund, was exempt from customs payments until April 1, 2018.
All individual customs, tax and other benefits granted to individual companies for the import of food products will be canceled in Uzbekistan starting from Feb. 1, 2018, and the government is prohibited from making such decisions in the future.
Imports of meat (except for frozen meat), crushed sunflower seeds, soybeans, cane and sugar beet are exempt from customs payments, and vegetable oil producers are exempt from paying VAT regarding the volumes produced on the basis of imported oilseeds until Jan. 1, 2019.
In 2017, imports of food products decreased by 11.6 percent compared to 2016 and amounted to $1.3 billion, exports increased by 26.1 percent and reached $876 million.
The prices for food products in Uzbekistan grew by an average of 15.9 percent in 2017, according to the State Statistics Committee of Uzbekistan.