January 31 2005, 09:33

Kazakhstan's President criticises idea of agroproducts import banning

Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev views as misleading "the attempts to reduce the cost-price of agricultural products on account of bans for [their] imports".

"Kazakhstan's accession to WTO will automatically make us refuse from this", Nazarbayev said at his meeting with the country's agricultural authorities on January 31, Gazeta.kz has informed.

Besides, the president thinks, reduction of VAT in an attempt to cut the cost-price would also be a wrong move.

"This is a direct subsidising of the commodity producer by the state, and WTO representatives are already now declaring that we have too big direct subsidies and are insisting on their reduction", he said.

Mr. Nazarbayev believes than the principal direction of improving competitiveness of Kazakhstan's agricultural products is improvement of its quality and reduction of the cost-price on account of new equipment.

The country's producers should get prepared to a tough competition, he said.