Kazakhstan to reduce dependency on poultry imports

The Kazakhstan government is taking active steps to support the poultry industry, the Director of the Department of Livestock under Ministry of Agriculture Rabiga Tokseitova has said, adding that it would allow the country to reduce the volume of imported poultry meat within the next five years.

“Kazakhstan is annually increasing its production output in the poultry industry, and nowadays the share of imports is constantly reduced, but so far we remain dependent on import supplies: and about 56% of poultry meat in the market is imported,” Tokseitova said.

Based on the government support for the poultry industry it has been decided to form a fund of feed grain of 300 thousand tonnes. Also the government is annually lowering the interest rates on bank loans to purchase equipment and technology for poultry farming, which aims to provide working capital for producers, Tokseitova added.

In addition, Kazakhstan has consistently pursued the policy of reducing import quotas for poultry meat, in particular from the US – currently one of the largest exporters of poultry meat in the country. In 2009 Kazakhstan imported 147,000 tonnes of US poultry. In 2010, the quota was reduced to 110 ,000 tonnes.

According to the official statics, the number of poultry in Kazakhstan in 2010 amounted to 32.780 million heads and in 2011 it is expected that industry value will increase by 3-6%.