DUSHANBE, May 20, 2009, Asia-Plus — Member nations of the Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) have developed a food security concept, the head of the EAEC Agrarian Center Vladimir Tarasov announced at an international conference formally titled “Eurasian Economic Community: Problem of Ensuring Food Security” in Moscow on March 19, Russian media reported.
According to him, the document worked out by specialists from Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Belarus has already undergone the preliminary examination in all the Community member nations.
“The necessity of working out the concept has resulted from the fact that a long-term search for a new economic strategy of development of the countries based on expansion of cooperation with the far abroad countries has not yielded any essential results; domestic markets are now overfilled by foods products from the far abroad states,” Tarasov said.
He noted that in Belarus, the far abroad countries accounted for 34 percent of the countries imports, in Russia – 85 percent, in Kazakhstan – 55 percent, in Tajikistan – 38 percent and in Kyrgyzstan – 37 percent.
“Rates of growth in production of agricultural goods, raw materials and food in the EAEC member nations have remained lower than the rate of increase in food imports in recent years,” said the Agrarian Center head, “Food Imports currently exceed a threshold of food security in the EAEC states by 10 to 15 percent.”
He stressed that economic measures aimed at ensuring food security should include setting state order for socially significant types of food and sale of them at fixed prices, seasonal financing of transportation expenses, preferential crediting, formation of an efficient system of selling agricultural output and interstate system of product promotion.
