Uzbekistan intends to export fruit and vegetable worth $1.5B
By Kamila Aliyeva
Uzbekistan intends to export fruit and vegetable products for $1.5 billion.
This was stated by director general of the specialized foreign trade company, Uzagroexport, Sultan Nazarov, Uzbek media outlets reported.
Uzbekistan managed to achieve unprecedented indicators in the export of fruits in May, he noted. As many as 120,000 tons of products worth about $150 million were sent abroad.
“Traditionally, our main external markets have become Kazakhstan and Russia. For the diversification of supplies, we plan to increase exports to Asian countries, for example, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea. A contract for 10,000 tons with Chinese buyers and 5,000 tons with Korean buyers have been signed earlier. This is about the supply of cherries,” Nazarov said.
According to forecasts of the company's specialists, 60 percent of exported products will go to Russia in 2018. This will be done both through direct contracts with the largest Russian retail chains, such as X5 Retail Group, Magnet, Holiday, Maria Ra and others, and through re-export via Kazakhstan.
Another direction for increasing export volumes is the promotion of all Uzbek fruit and vegetable products under the UzAgro unified brand. The company has already carried out test deliveries to Russia and Dubai.
“This brand will allow formulating common approaches to the quality and safety of products. For its large-scale promotion, first of all, it is necessary to establish quality control at the local level, which we are currently engaged in. We plan that next year we will completely switch to deliveries under the unified brand UzAgro,” the director general of the Uzagroexport company said.
In January-April 2018, Uzbekistan exported fruit and vegetable products for $ 115.9 million, thus registering an increase of 41.8 percent. Of the total volume of fruits and vegetables, the share of fruits and berries amounted to 17.3 percent, vegetables - 65.6 percent, and grapes - 13 percent.
In the export of fruit and vegetable products, the main partners were Kazakhstan (of the total volume of 35.4 percent), Russia (13.3 percent), Afghanistan (12.5 percent), Vietnam (6.7 percent), China (5.9 percent), Turkey (5.2 percent), Kyrgyzstan (2.5 percent), Pakistan (2.3 percent) and Iran (2 percent).
Agreements on the supply of fruit and vegetable products for 2018 and 2019 were previously signed with South Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., Indonesia, Germany and other countries.
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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva
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