Baku, Azerbaijan, April 5
By Fakhri Vakilov – Trend:
The purchase of grain and cotton harvesting machinery in Uzbekistan will be financed by borrowing funds from the State Support Fund for Agriculture under the Ministry of Finance, Trend reports with reference to a state decree.
President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev approved a number of additional measures to support agricultural engineering.
As part of the document, a new order of state support for the purchase of agricultural equipment by agricultural organizations will be introduced in the country.
In 2018, more than 33,700 units of agricultural equipment, which is 1.5 times more than in 2017, were delivered to agricultural producers, primarily farms, organizers of cotton-textile production and clusters.
At the same time, despite the measures taken, more than 25 percent of the available agricultural machinery has been in operation for over 15 years, and therefore providing agricultural producers with high-quality and affordable equipment remains a priority and requires further state support.
The amount of funds allocated for the purchase of equipment will be determined annually when forming the income and expenses of the fund. The terms of their issuance the interest rate is not higher than 50 percent of the Central Bank refinancing rate. The term of their return is from 7 to 10 years depending on the payback.
Moreover, interest expenses of agricultural organizations in the amount of 10 percentage points of the established rate of commercial banks and leasing companies on credit and leasing contracts for the purchase of all types of tractors, grain and cotton seed drills, as well as three or more housing plows of domestic production, except harvesting and cotton harvesting equipment will be reimbursed at the expense of the state budget.
Furthermore, domestic producers are exempted from value-added tax on the sale of agricultural equipment until January 1, 2020.
Until January 1, 2020, the value-added tax for leasing companies and commercial banks in terms of leasing services will be calculated from the positive difference between the acquisition price and the sale price of the leased object exempted from value-added tax, including that acquired by import.
The Ministry of Finance was instructed to place within a month deposits of $50 million in the commercial banks for a period of up to two years, by their request, to allocate targeted loans to domestic producers of agricultural equipment with an interest rate of 5 percent per annum, including a commercial bank margin of 1 percent.
The head of state also instructed the government to take measures within a month to attract long-term preferential credit lines from international financial institutions and foreign government financial organizations in 2019-2021 in the amount of at least $100 million annually to finance the supply of domestic agricultural equipment on a leasing basis.
Within a month, the guidebook should be developed, providing for the expansion of the production of components and spare parts for agricultural machinery with the attraction of foreign direct investment and bringing the production localization level of all types of agricultural equipment to at least 40 percent by the end of 2021.
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