Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 23
By Nigar Guliyeva – Trend:
In Kazakhstan, 7.8 million pieces of sheepskin are produced annually, of which only 2 percent are processed.
Five factories for processing sheepskins are loaded only by 5.5%, while wool processing enterprises are loaded on average by 12.7%, Kazinform reported referring to the Kazakh agriculture ministry's data that was read out at the Parliament Oct 23. Only 10% of the wool is processed.
"All the wool processing plants that are available in the country have poor technology and lack appropriate selective processing of wool," deputy Majilis Speaker Vladimir Bozhko said addressing the event.
He noted that all neighboring states prohibited the export of sheepskins, except Kazakhstan, pointing to fact that domestic companies are left without raw materials.
To solve the problem, the Ministry of Agriculture plans to create 30 new procurement points for wool and 135 procurement points for sheepskins at slaughter stations, more than 2,500 haul-off areas in pastures and over 1,700 points of artificial insemination.
Furthermore, the Ministry further proposes to upgrade two operating enterprises and to construct one plant for the integrated processing of all types of wool, including producing by-products such as humus and fat.
The Ministry expects that as a result, the number of livestock will increase by 2021 by 2.7 million and the output of sheep breeding will double and reach 123 billion tenge.
The official exchange rate for October 23 is 335.24 KZT/USD.