OREANDA-NEWS. Uzbekistan will soon open a transport-logistics center in Latvia, the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov stated at the international conference Ў°About main food programme implementation of reserves in UzbekistanЎ± on Friday, 6 June.

Speaking at the conference, Uzbek President said that the Uzbek companies will open transport-logistic center with the capacity of 1,500 tonnes in Baltic city of LiepЁЎja.

Fresh fruit and vegetable products will be delivered to northern and Western Europe directly via this center, Uzbek leader added.

President said that consumers, unfortunately, use our fruit and vegetable products in tinned, processed or dried form, not fresh, when the products lose their taste characteristics due to medical point of view.

He said that despite significant moves towards in this area, Uzbekistan has no all infrastructure, resources and opportunities, necessary modern technologies such as shock freezing, storage in neutral gas environment to store products in fresh condition to ensure stability and predictability of prices, decrease dependences from season factors and others.

He said that Uzbekistan currently carried out large scale works in this sphere. He said that 274 new modern cold store chambers and storehouses for fruit and vegetables with total volume of over 190,000 tonnes were constructed or reconstructed.

Uzbek lader said that modern capacities on storage of fruits and vegetables in neutral gas environment for over 3,000 tonnes of products was constructed at Navoi free industrial and economic zone in 2010. Later the products are directed to Europe and Asia from here, he added.

He said that the capacities of inter-modal center of logistics in Navoi, which includes Navoi International Airport, managed by Korean Air, is fully used to exports fruits and vegetables to abroad.

Overall, Uzbekistan has over 1,300 storages with the capacity of 630,000 tonnes, which each year store main fruits and vegetables for winter to ensure stable prices in internal market and ensure exports in winter-spring period, Islam Karimov said.

Uzbek leader said that the country exports food products, first of all fruits and vegetables, for about USD 5 billion each year. He said that the exports of agriculture products rose by over three times in last three years.

Uzbekistan exports over 180 types of fresh and processed fruit and vegetable products to 80 countries. Uzbekistan is among top ten on exports of such products as apricots, plums, grapes, nuts, cabbage and some other fruits and vegetables.