Mirziyoyev: food supply is of huge importance

As pandemic is far from over, the world market is seeing a decline in prices for oil, cotton, gas, electricity, while prices for food products are growing. Many countries have imposed restrictions on the export of flour, wheat, rice, butter, potatoes and other products.

These issues require a timely response from the governments, as economic consequences of the pandemic will be much worse than the virus itself. With this in mind, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev instructed to increase the procurement volume and to properly organize strategic reserves.

According to Mirziyoyev, in order to ensure food security, it is very important to expand the procurement of products that are not produced in sufficient quantities.

In 2019 Uzbekistan had imported almost 60 thousand tons of rice and 150 thousand tons of potatoes. Meanwhile, there are plenty of areas to grow them in the country.

Mirziyoyev instructed to sow an additional 10 thousand hectares of rice this year. Another goal is to increase the area of potato fields to at least 50 thousand hectares and increase the yield at least by twice.

In the fat and oil industry, only 46 percent of the capacity is used, while cotton seeds comprise 90 percent of raw materials.

This year, it is expected that the yield of wheat will grow by 20 percent.

The import volume of dairy products has exceeded 70 million dollars, even tomato paste, canned corn and green peas are imported, while their production could easily be organized in the country. The level of milk processing in Khorezm, Namangan, and Surkhandarya regions does not even reach 10 percent.

Uzbekozikovkatholding, a state body regulating the sphere was instructed to increase the production of import-substituting products and export of goods based on fruit processing.