DUSHANBE, July 5, 2010, 2010, Asia-Plus — The Government of Tajikistan has decided to support domestic producers and purchase grains for official reserves from local farmers.
President Emomali Rahmon gave such an order at the latest session of the government on July 3.
Director of the Agency for Public Procurements, Dilmurod Davlatov, told Asia-Plus Monday afternoon that they have not purchased grains from the population in recent years. “Funds allocated from the budget have gone to purchasing grains for the official reserves from Kazakhstan,” he noted.
“Meanwhile, domestic producers have begun to produce more wheat over the past two years and it has been decided to purchase grains inside the country, which is much cheaper,” Davlatov stressed. According to him, this process will allow reducing flour prices in the country.
“The Official Reserves Agency is now engaged in dealing with this issue and if it purchases wheat from the population, our agency is ready to offer its services. We will act as a mediator,” he added.
In the meantime, the source at the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) says they have applied twice to the Agency for Public Procurements, proposing to purchase grains for the official reserves from domestic producers at lower prices and thereby support the domestic producers. “However, we have not yet received response to our proposal,” the MoA source noted.
We recall that Tajikistan last year imported wheat for 73.566 million U.S. dollars and wheat flours for 100.996 million U.S. dollars. In the first quarter f this year, Tajikistan imported wheat for 11.964 million U.S. dollars and wheat flour for 19.515 million U.S. dollars. According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Tajikistan last year produced 1.3 million tons of cereals, with 90 percent of them being wheat.
