Rise in price of potatoes is artificial

Baku/25.12.13/Turan : This year, agricultural production in Azerbaijan rose by 4.8%. Compared with 11 months in 2012 the rate of production decreased by 0.9%. Experts say that for some types of agricultural products statistics somewhat overstated .

According to the State Statistics Committee, the volume of agricultural production reached 4990 million manat. The share of agriculture in GDP was 5.3% , down 0.2 % over the comparable period in 2012 .

This year, the production of plant varieties grown by 4 % , animal products - 5.5%. This year, the decreased production of sunflower (minus 9.9%) , cotton ( 22% ) and tobacco ( 20% ) .

According to the SSC , this year the potatoes were planted on 65,300 hectares , 500 hectares less than in 2012 . However, this did not prevent SSC from counting potato production at 992,700 tons, up 2.4% ( 24,000 tons) more than last year. With such volumes the retail price of potatoes has grown in recent months about 2 times and is today 1.2-1.5 manats per 1 kg.

According to the potato balance for 2012, ingestion of potatoes was 668,000 tons.

State Customs Committee (SCC) fixes import of 76,600 tons and export of 58,800 tons of potatoes .

Annual losses amounted to 61,700 tons, or 6.3% of production. The fact that inflation data on local production and indirectly confirm specialists. According to the former Deputy Minister of Agriculture Islam Ibrahimov, the country is scarce with potatoes chronically. He stressed the value of sharp rise in prices of potatoes is also a response by the growers to the increasing tariffs on fuel. But basically it is an artificial phenomenon , he said.

Note that the SCC charges 0.42 manat per each kilogram of potato imports . - 08B-