Modern State and Forecast of Food Production in Kazakhstan

Food industry along with agriculture plays a significant role in ensuring food security of the country. In addition, the condition of food provision in Kazakhstan is characterized by the threshold level of dependence on foreign market. The state has weak control over the food market; the country cannot feed itself on its own. Import reaches from 40% to 60% for majority of items in the consumer basket. Analysis of import flows shows that share of import in domestic consumption of major food items has already exceeded maximum permissible level for a long period of time. Such situation is very dangerous for the country’s economy and deepens its significant dependence on the foreign market, increasing competitiveness both in domestic and foreign market. One of the reasons of current state is falling behind the domestic needs in food production, low efficiency of food industry enterprises, low competitiveness of domestic products, etc. Solution of the food industry problem requires large scale modernization, technical upgrading of enterprises, increase of the state support amounts up to the level adopted by the Customs Union Member States, improvement of the management methods and its focus on market laws.