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Vitebsk Oblast agribusiness enterprises told to focus on raw materials, milk quality
GLUBOKOYE, 11 January (BelTA) – The agribusiness complex of Vitebsk Oblast should work on the zones that supply raw materials and on increasing the quality of milk. Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko made the statement as he visited the Glubokoye dairy-canning factory on 8 January, BelTA has learned.
The head of government came to the head enterprise of the local agribusiness holding company in order to evaluate how the presidential decree on the development of Vitebsk Oblast’s agribusiness complex is being implemented in practice and evaluate the economic effectiveness of the decisions that had been made. Roman Golovchenko said: “In February it will be one year since the presidential decree was signed. There was a difficult economic situation. it was necessary to recover from it by means of centralization and by clearing the debts that had been accumulated in the previous years. It is too early to talk about the final results now but serious positive shifts are already obvious. Milk production is on the rise across the country, including in Vitebsk Oblast.”
In January-November 2020 Belarus exported 4.4 million tonnes of dairy products worth $2.2 billion. Vitebsk Oblast enterprises exported 332,700 tonnes of products worth $157.5 million. Dairy export amounted to 60% of the milk output. As much as 90% of powdered milk products was exported, 80% of cheese, and 60% of butter.
The prime minister noted that there are still problems to address, including the shortage of assets in a number of agricultural enterprises in Vitebsk Oblast due to the still insufficient volume of investments. “The Glubokoye dairy-canning factory demonstrated an increase in earnings and the volume of sales. The enterprise started earning profits. Even judging by this statistics one can say that the right decision has been made. But we may have to polish it a bit. This is why we will use monitoring data in order to arrange a major government conference to discuss results in detail and decide what else needs to be done in order to improve the effectiveness of raw materials zones. Our processing industry is generally fine, output capabilities are large, the enterprises have been modernized, they demonstrate good performance – the profitability of sales is higher than that in the mechanical engineering industry. But it is necessary to put more efforts into the raw materials zones in order to improve milk production per cow and increase the quality of milk,” the head of government stressed.
The matter of modernization and reconstruction of dairy farms, including using internal resources, was raised during the visit to the enterprise. The Vitebsk Oblast administration has been focusing on it recently. “There is a great demand for them in districts of the northern region, particularly in the areas where farming is difficult. There are outdated dairy farms. Work is now in progress to determine the sources of funding and how these farms should be modernized,” Roman Golovchenko said.
The Glubokoye dairy holding company comprises three processing enterprises and 24 agricultural enterprises in Glubokoye District, Sharkovshchina District, Braslav District, and Dokshitsy District. The total area of their lands is 161,000 hectares or about 13% of Vitebsk Oblast’s total area. In 2020 the holding company’s gross output totaled Br153 million. The company also increased export. Milk accounts for 35% of the industrial group’s output, with the share of cereals and leguminous crops at 22% and the share of forage crops at 20%.
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