"Alekseevsky" State Farm will not be sold with no reduce in staff - Head of Bashkortostan

UFA, 26 July 2017. /Bashinform News Agency, Galina Bakhshieva/. The Head of Bashkortostan Rustem Khamitov took part in the opening ceremony of the second stage of the greenhouse complex with an area of 2.5 hectares at the "Alekseevsky" State Farm in the Ufa district on July 26.

"For a long time the "Alekseevsky" State Farm was a calling card of our republic in terms of agriculture. This greenhouse economy is large, well-known in the country and has always been considered as one of the flagships. But, unfortunately, due to various reasons, the growth trend of this enterprise declined, the performance indicators deteriorated significantly", the Head of the Republic stated. "A huge debt burden of about 1.3 billion rubles with annual revenues of 1.6-1.7 billion rubles - has actually made unprofitable the whole complex operation and not just the greenhouse economy. Debts were accumulated, and we had to take decisive measures to improve the situation".

As Rustem Khamitov stressed, it was important to find the best methods for improving the economy of the farm.

The first thing to be done was to continue construction of modern greenhouses. According to the Head of the Region, this work is conducted quite actively.

"We just saw a new 2.5 hectares of greenhouses. Last year, 2.5 hectares were launched. This is plus five hectares to the available areas. The main task is to modernize 30 hectares of old greenhouses built in the Soviet era and to build about 40-42 hectares of new, modern greenhouses in their place", Rustem Khamitov said.

According to the most conservative estimates, 40 hectares cost a minimum of six billion rubles. It is clear that the state farm cannot cope with it alone. The third-party investments are necessary.

To date, the "Alekseevsky" State Farm employs 1,500 people.

"We understand: modernization is necessary and at the same time the staff should be preserved. Proceeding from these considerations, taking into account the fact that it is impossible to perform such work in a state-farm format, it was decided to reincorporate Alekseevsky as a joint-stock company and seek funds in the market, to attract partners who would like to participate in the modernization work. "

According to him, now options are searched from the point of view of additional investors attraction.

"The Alekseevsky State Farm economic situation is far from being brilliant today. Moreover, by some parameters it is close to a pre-bankruptcy state. It is necessary to remedy this situation. I hope that we will manage to do it. It is fixable. With the help of federal loans, republican assistance, attraction of a private investor, I think that we will reach new results. I am sure of this", summed up Rustem Khamitov.