Uzbekistan to start local production of imported food products

It was noted that Andijan, Bukhara, and Khorezm regions effectively used these lands and increased their exports by 1.5 times while ensuring the domestic market by harvesting up to 3 times.

As a result of the reforms, the level of supply of poultry meat, eggs, fish, and rice products in the republic improved significantly.

For example, in the last 3 years:

ꞏ Andijan increased fish production from 4 thousand tons to 25 thousand tons, Bukhoro - from 3.5 thousand tons to 23 thousand tons;
ꞏ Samarkand brought poultry meat from 22,000 tons to 100,000 tons, Tashkent region - from 31,000 tons to 90,000 tons;
ꞏ Syrdarya increased egg production from 127 million to 200 million, Namangan - from 480 million to 700 million, Fergana - from 350 million to 600 million. They are fully supplying themselves

However, it was noted that some regional governors could not properly organize these works.

“Regional governors know how much there is a shortage of food and how many imports are coming into their territory, don’t they?” the President asked. 

It was noted that the domestic market remains dependent on the import of 25 types of food products.

The President strongly criticized this situation and instructed the officials together with regional, district and city governors to present project packages for producing and increasing these 25 types of imported products within a month and issue a government decision.

At the end of six months next year, regional governors who have not changed in this regard will be fired.

Seasonal changes in the prices of basic types of food products were pointed out at the meeting. The reason is that 50 agricultural districts lack refrigeration, drying, sorting and storage facilities.

In this regard, the regional governors, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, were instructed to adopt a special program for the sharp increase of storage capacities in 50 districts within a month. 

“There are funds for this. However, no governor does not know how much capacity he has to store products and how to use the available funds,” the President said.

It was also noted that 670 billion soums of the 1.5 trillion soums of credit resources allocated to fruit and vegetables this year were allocated.

It was criticized that the governors in their proposals only show the new projects that will be implemented, the amount of products that will be taken into account, how this will affect the supply of the population, and there is no answer to the questions of what the price will be until the end of the year.

Regional governors were instructed to present concrete plans and calculations on how much to increase the production of imported products within ten days, showing specific entrepreneurs and specific projects for increasing the production of imported products.