05.07.2021

On July 5, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev got acquainted with the presentation of projects in the agricultural engineering and chemical industry.

A year ago, on July 8, the Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan on improving the efficiency of agricultural engineering organizations was adopted. According to the document, the state shares in the authorized capital of the Tashkent Agricultural Machinery Plant, Tashkent Aggregate Plant, Chirchik Agricultural Machinery Plant and JSC «Technologist» were entrusted to the JSC «Uzavtosanoat» for three years. Along with this, the tasks were set to increase the profitability of enterprises, improve product quality and reduce costs.

Over the past period, the production areas of the Tashkent Agricultural Machinery Plant have been optimized by 68%, the efficiency of equipment operation has been increased. As a result, the cost of production decreased by 4 % and about 45 billion Uzbek soums were saved. The talks were held with foreign manufacturers – the cost of tractors with a capacity of 80-100 horsepower was reduced by 15-20%.

A partnership has been established with the Minsk Tractor Plant. In the framework of this cooperation, it is planned to produce 3,000 tractors in Uzbekistan per year.

However, much remains to be accomplished to increase the technological and productive capacity of enterprises and provide agriculture with modern equipment. The fact that the level of workload of the existing capacities of the industry is 19% and the level of localization – on average 20%, is unsatisfactory, was noted at the event. Moreover, the cost of domestic production equipment is 10-15% more expensive than imported.

In this regard, the measures to create a cluster of agricultural engineering, increase capacity utilization and increase the level of localization were discussed at the presentation.

A particular attention is paid to the transfer of industry enterprises from Tashkent to Chirchik and the organization of an agricultural engineering cluster based on them.

Thus, the agricultural machinery plants in Tashkent and Chirchik, Tashkent Aggregate Plant, «Technologist» and «UzKlaas Agro» enterprises will be placed in one venue and merged into an industrial cluster. 1,200 equipment and devices, 28 types of equipment will be optimized, capacity utilization will be increased to 85%, localization – up to 50%. As a result, the production costs are expected to decrease by 20% and increase the profitability of enterprises by 10%.

The Ministry of Finance was instructed to allocate 500 billion Uzbek soums for the initial costs associated with the creation of the cluster. These funds will be returned through the sale through an auction of buildings and structures, land plots of industry enterprises.

The President gave instructions on expanding the localization and making equipment cheaper. In particular, the task was set to increase the level of localization of tractors produced jointly with the Minsk Tractor Plant by 40% next year and by 50% in 2023, to bring localization at the «UzKlaas Agro» enterprise by 25%.

It is also pointed out the need to provide preferences to farms and clusters when acquiring equipment of domestic production. Therefore, it was proposed to reduce the initial lease fee from 25 to 15%, the interest rate from 16 to 7%, to extend the lease term from 5 to 7 years.

The instructions were given to improve the service system of agricultural machinery based on the study of international experience.

During the presentation, the projects related to the creation of chemical clusters were also considered.

In particular, 23 projects for $3.4 billion are planned to be implemented in the cluster based on «Navoiyazot» Joint-Stock company. As a result, the production capacity of $1.8 billion per year and more than 3.1 thousand jobs will be created.

Recently, a plant for the production of carbamide-formaldehyde concentrate and resin was commissioned. This year, a project will be implemented to organize the production of sulfuric acid.

It is also scheduled to organize the production of carbon fibers based on the joint venture «Elektrokimyozavodi» in the city of Navoiy.

The information on the ongoing work on the creation of a scientific and chemical cluster in the village of Ulugbek was also presented.