ASTANA – Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan plan to expand agricultural cooperation, creating modern production facilities, said Kazakh First Vice Minister of Trade and Integration Arman Shakkaliyev at the Asia Grain Conference 2023, which took place on April 25-26 in Almaty, reported the ministry’s press service on April 27.
Photo credit: Kazakh Ministry of Trade and Integration.
According to Shakkaliyev, the sides plan to launch joint grain and fodder production in the Akmola and Kostanai regions by the year-end, implementing investment agreements and trade contracts signed during Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s state visit to Tashkent in December 2022.
“The Uzbek side plans to visit Kazakh regions to determine land plots and conditions of the partnership,” said Shakkaliyev.
The sides agreed to construct a feedlot for 20,000 heads of cattle and a meat processing complex, a plant for processing fruit and berry crops in the Turkistan Region, and a grain production cluster for deep processing of up to 1 million tons of grain. It is also planned to launch a project for refining vegetable oil at the Central Asia International Industrial Cooperation Center on the border of the two countries.
To enhance trade cooperation, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan created a joint export-import company UZKAZTRADE to assist businesses in increasing mutual deliveries of products and entering the markets of third countries. So far, it is planned to import fruits and vegetables from Uzbekistan to meet the needs of the Kazakh market.
The international conference brought together nearly 250 delegates from 21 countries, including Afghanistan, China, Malaysia, Türkiye, the European Union states, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and other countries.
