Vegetable producers from Kazakhstan have already lost the battle for export to neighboring Turkmenistan, according to agricultural expert Kirill Pavlov.
He convincingly argues that the state, by catering to oligarchs in the domestic market, is actually shooting itself in the foot regarding strategic development issues. Oligarchs are harmful and dangerous to the country. In his words:
«Turkmens no longer hide their desire to monopolize the greenhouse vegetable market. Kazakhstan is no longer considered a competitor; they have turned their attention to Uzbekistan and are calculating how much the export of their neighbors has decreased. Azerbaijan is clearly next.
Why did this happen? Because we had excessive appetites of the Nazarbayevs, Klebanovs, Mashkevichs, and other freeloaders in the energy sector, preventing us from offering a discount on tariffs for greenhouses, even with a wall away from the Ekibastuz GRES. And the energy carrier is the main item of expenditure in the greenhouse business.
I wrote about this for the first time back in April 2020. Since then, we have just woken up, and this year decided to compensate for the costs of the energy carrier, but have not yet figured out how. By the way, notice how, as in the case of ‘preferential loans,’ they don’t issue them in advance at a low-interest rate, but subsidize the difference at the state’s expense. Our banks are poor, they cannot make a profit without the state. And our energy sector is in distress, they cannot immediately provide a cheap tariff — the state has to pay the difference.
As a result, perhaps, we will somehow manage to supply the domestic market, but export for greenhouse growers is irretrievably lost.»
