BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 26
By Fakhri Vakilov - Trend:
Food production in Uzbekistan is projected to increase by 2.3 times by 2030, as stated in the Concept of Uzbekistan’s comprehensive socio-economic development until 2030, Trend reports citing Uzbek media.
The Concept also indicates that one of the main factors in development of the food industry is the level of supply of raw materials.
The climatic conditions in Uzbekistan are very favorable for the cultivation and production of many crops. The potential makes it possible to grow more than 20 million tons of fruits and vegetables per year.
In general, despite a rather high degree of provision with raw materials, the level of processing in Uzbekistan of vegetables (4.3 percent of the total harvest) and fruits (20 percent) remains low.
The constraining factor for the further development of the food industry, in particular, is the undeveloped infrastructure of the food market, which negatively affects the formation of fair prices for socially important types of food and the solution of their physical accessibility to the population.
Uzbekistan’s Uzbekozikovkat holding company of the food industry announced the following figures for the needs of the population in a number of important food products: Uzbekistan's annual demand for sugar is 633,000 tons (local production – 464,700 tons), and butter – 264,300 tons (local production – 12,000 tons), in confectionery products – 195,800 tons (local production – 69,600 tons), in cheese- 124,000 tons (local production 12,500 tons).
The main directions of the development of the industry in Uzbekistan are: increasing the level of capacity utilization of large enterprises for the processing of agricultural products; the creation of modern industries, mainly in small enterprises with a completed technological cycle for the production of high-quality food products; increasing the depth of processing of local agricultural raw materials by creating appropriate infrastructure; expansion of the production and assortment of canned fruits and vegetables, fruit juices, confectionery, meat and dairy products, oil and fat and alcoholic beverages, as well as the organization of the production of freeze-dried foods, baby foods, etc;
As a result, it is expected that the import of wheat and oilseeds will be optimized, as well as the allocation of irrigated lands for oilseeds, this will increase the utilization of the production capacities of oil-and-fat and flour-grinding enterprises due to this level, and bring capacity utilization to 95 percent by 2022.
As a result, it is expected that the import of wheat and oilseeds and allocation of irrigated lands for oilseed crops will be optimized, the utilization of the production capacities of oil-and-fat and flour-grinding enterprises will be increased due to this level, and capacity utilization will be brought to 95 percent by 2022.
Moreover, the indicator of the share of food products in the total industrial output will increase from 13.2 percent to 14.4 percent by 2030 due to an increase in the level of utilization of production capacities, as well as a decrease in their concentration in certain regions.
According to official estimates, currently the share of the food industry in Uzbekistan’s industrial production is 11.5 percent. As of January 1, 2019, over 12,900 enterprises of various forms of ownership are operating in the food industry, including 109 large ones.
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