In general, Kazakhstan exported agro-industrial products for $3.2 billion, which is 23% higher than the target indicator of the State Program of the Agro-Industrial Complex for 2018 and exceeds the figures for 2017 by 26%.

The planned indicators of the state program for the export of agricultural products were exceeded due to the export volumes of Atyrau, East Kazakhstan, North Kazakhstan, West Kazakhstan, Aktobe regions and Nur-Sultan.

Export of processed agricultural products

The share of exports of processed products was 37% ($1.1 billion).

“Such work within the project office of the Ministry of Agriculture was conducted for the first time and in fact for the first time we are consciously discussing the results of exports of agricultural products and know the contribution of each region for each position and we can now say exactly what and which region exports to which country. I believe that this is very important, because it will guide local executive bodies so that they intensify their work, both in increasing exports of agricultural products in general, and in increasing the volume of processing of agricultural products and thus fulfilling the task set by the first President – Elbasy to increase exports of processed products,” said Issayeva.

Leaders in the export of processed agricultural products among the regions (in monetary terms) are Kostanay region, Turkestan region and the cities of Shymkent and Almaty.

“The contribution of these three regions amounted to 64% of the export volume of processed products. Of course, other areas need to actively develop recycling in order to increase their contribution and absolute figures in both physical and monetary terms of exports of processed products,” the vice minister said.

Meat exports

The Vice Minister Issayeva focused separately on the exports of meat. Thus, in 2018, Kazakhstan exported 33 thousand tons of meat to 11 countries of the world.

The volume of beef exports amounted to 19.95 thousand tons on the basis of issued veterinary certificates (for comparison, 5.5 thousand tons in 2017). The regions leading in the export of beef are Turkestan (5,000 tons), Aktobe and Almaty regions (4,000 tons each). The main beef exporters are 20 Kazakhstani enterprises. It is important that exporting enterprises work in anchor cooperation with small and medium-sized farms in the region. In total, more than 19 thousand farms are involved in the meat animal husbandry program.

In addition, Issayeva spoke about the entry of Kazakhstani enterprises of the agro-industrial complex in the registers of foreign countries.

According to the rules of international trade of the WTO, importing countries, the export of livestock products and feed can be carried out only from enterprises included in the Registries on the basis of inspections or a guarantee of the veterinary service.

As of April 1, 2019, a total of 2018 Kazakhstani enterprises for livestock production and processing are included in the Registers of third countries and the EAEU. Also, cetain countries (for example, the PRC) require that, when importing plant products, an inspection or guarantee of the quarantine service of the exporting country is carried out.

Crop production exports

Summing up the work for 3 months of 2019, Issayeva reported that 7.7 thousand tons of meat, 3.4 million tons of crop were exported.

A total of 539 Kazakhstani enterprises for the production and processing of crop products are in the Registers of the PRC and the EAEU.