Livestock (animal husbandry)

Kazakh people from ancient times were considered as nomadic people, huge pastures allowed people to grow livestock in an ecologically clean environment. The presence of the country's vast natural grasslands provides an excellent opportunity to produce competitive and, most importantly, environmentally friendly livestock products.

This sector of economy is closely connected to the textile industry because of animals’ leather and wool, which are raw materials for the textile production. JSC "National Holding" KazAgro "implements the state policy on development of agro-industrial complex of Kazakhstan by ensuring effective management of investment assets of companies included in its structure.

In other words, we can say that livestock market is well-developing branch of economy nowadays that is expected to bring future benefits for the whole country and thus create good conditions for the development of textile industry in order to gain competitive advantage in Central Asia and to enter global markets.

Challenges/barriers to develop textile business cluster

Kazakhstan is undergoing substantial socio-economic transformation processes that influence the organization of textile industry, and specifically cotton production. However, in the textile branch of industry there is a number of the unresolved problems that T&C manufacturers are facing with. Some of them are considered below.

1) Lack of investment into industry.

The reason for this barrier is that in Kazakhstan investments into the oil and gas sector stand at the center of government and corporate attention due to the immensely high revenue they create. So, consequently, government control over many other sectors, including textile sector, have largely been eliminated in Kazakhstan. As the result, the industry did not get needed amount of money to sufficiently develop and, therefore, be profitable.

2) Lack of Agricultural advisory services.

Many farmers nowadays in country have little experience in agriculture under a non-socialist system. They have neither special education or training, nor any service or support agency to rely on in order to get advice, help or consultation on any issue. It leads to the situation where farmers are left all alone and by themselves in dealing with problems, and they are forced to make the decisions that later can lead to wrong consequences, just because there was no one to help and guide. Also, even existing “support” is only presented by outdated “top-down” meetings that are inefficient and ineffective. Also, there are no knowledge and innovation channels for farmers to exchange their knowledge; platforms where they can be trained about how to survive in today’s constantly changing and highly competitive business environment, or to share their experiences.

3) Lack of farmer’s associations.

Farmer’s associations that already exist in Kazakhstan are quite inactive and do not fully represent the interests of farmers. These associations (e.g. the farmer and dekhan association in Uzbekistan) were created in the outdated top-down manner and their role in promoting farmers’ interests hardly ever was important. Such phenomenon is called “the post-Soviet syndrome” and is frequently noticed clearly in many other former Soviet regions (e.g. Ukraine, Caucasus and Central Asia).

4) Significant depreciation of fixed assets - outdated and old equipment.

The branch is mainly presented by the enterprises constructed in Soviet period, meaning they were built approximately 25-35 years ago. Even though technologies of that time were good and especially quality control in Soviet Union was very high, it is undeniable that useful life of all the inventory and machines is over. As a result - the low level of Kazakhstan’s technical equipment is now a barrier that creates difficulties on the way to technological sophistication and efficiency.