Utilization fee was simply introduced and that's it, although Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced a moratorium on all additional charges - the chairman of the Union of Kazakhstan's crop grower

The Ministry of Ecology has signed an order on the introduction of utilization fee for agricultural machinery, which should come into force by the end of June. Agricultural producers have repeatedly stated that it will deal a serious blow to agriculture and the economy of Kazakhstan. We have already written about it in our previous materials, and today we decided to learn how the players of the agricultural market view the information about signing of the order of the Ministry of Ecology, despite the active objections of agrarians.

Victor Aslanov, the chairman of the Union of crop growers of Kazakhstan, expressed his opinion on this issue in his interview to a correspondent of World of Nan website.

- In winter we were preparing joint appeals from several associations, there was my personal meeting with the Minister, at which I kind of convinced him in the inexpediency and inadequacy of the arguments of the initiators of this fee. The document was already under signature, but they told me to wait, to listen to the opinion of the associations. We sent a letter in which, on behalf of the associations, the following circumstances were pointed out.

First of all, utilization fee is introduced primarily to support domestic agricultural machinery manufacturers. But, of course, they can hardly be called machinery manufacturers. At the meeting with the minister, we discussed this point in detail. At that time, the percentage of pure localization was about 20%. We thought that, on average, one of the first plants opened in the early 2000s added 1-1.5% per year to the localization rate.

The initiators of the utilization fee say that we need to support local manufacturers in order to gradually reach a high localization percentage. But if we know that they've been adding 1 percent for 20 years, we still have 80 years to wait until they show 100% localization. That's an interesting fact, we've pointed it out, but it's been overlooked.

Secondly. As part of the introduction of utilization fee, the idea that farmers have accumulated a lot of equipment stands out quite distinclty. That it's time for us to approach Western standards and introduce disposal of this equipment. I haven't seen any information anywhere about what kind of machinery it is. Every year in spring we have a certain figure. I figured that the fleet that we have, which includes sowing complexes, tractors and aggregates, we would have spent 7-10 days sowing all over Kazakhstan. In the end, we spend a month sowing. Why is that? On the one hand, we seem to have a lot of machinery, but on the other hand, for some reason, the sowing season stretches, even despite the dry weather.

We do not have strict figures, but we know that this equipment has accumulated during the active renewal of the machine and tractor fleet in the last 20-25 years. That is, the bulk of this equipment, which is not involved in sowing or harvesting works, is based on large farms. We can say that it is a dead weight. These are, for example, some "Yenisei" and "Niva" harvesters, which once participated in some campaigns. Frankly speaking, the farmers were asked to buy this equipment, to support domestic producers. They identified some plant, said that it would soon be powerful, so we need to support it now, and then it will improve service and so on. We had a lot of projects like this. The most important thing in utilization fee and in general in this matter is service. For some reason, no one raises this issue. Today it simply does not exist.

So, the plume of this equipment has accumulated, it stands, affects the statistics, but, in fact, it does not work. Agrarians can't sell it, no one really needs used machinery. At the same time, this machinery doesn't contaminate the environment, in principle.

These are two main theses that we raise everywhere, but for some reason they are ignored. We need other indicators, not quantitative ones, but for example, if you are worried about ecology, where are the CO2 emissions figures, where the diesel fuel consumption figures, has it grown or not? All these figures do not exist, but it would be very interesting to see, especially in dynamics, at least for the last five years. Our area has not changed, our car and tractor fleet could only grow qualitatively.

It turns out that agricultural producers and agribusinesses were in the position of the defending party, but there were no charges. Utilization fee was simply introduced and a tax was imposed, so to speak. Although in his Message, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev voiced a moratorium on all additional charges except taxes. Is Utilization fee a tax? No. On the one hand, there was a ban, but then discussion of utilization fee was started. Although there was only a dispute in social networks, there was no exchange of views, because we argued only with the document. We didn't hear the other side, except in response to our appeals. But they say the same thing that we have a lot of technology, that it litters, but no figures. The only figure that's easily broken down is the amount of equipment. I've described it in detail above.