23 August, Tolochin District /Olga Belyavskaya - BELTA/. Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich has set the task to increase the number of industrial apple orchards in Belarus. He announced this to journalists today following a field meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers in Tolochin District, as reported by a BELTA correspondent. Agrarians will have to make every effort to displace imported apples from the domestic market by replacing them with Belarusian apples. These issues cannot be resolved simultaneously, stressed Mikhail Myasnikovich. "Although, in principle, according to statistics, we have a balance of apple production and consumption, we import about a third, which is 50-60 thousand tons, today," the Prime Minister stated. "In this regard, we need to reorient in two directions: the number of industrial orchards must increase, and a high level of storage must be ensured." According to Mikhail Myasnikovich, the apples obtained from personal subsidiary plots are low-commodity and cannot be stored for a long time. The task is to increase, first of all, the areas under apple orchards in the country's farms. All conditions for this have been created. For example, institutes of the National Academy of Sciences have solved the issue of providing farms with their own planting material. "It is now necessary to work on increasing the areas of industrial orchards and on apple storage issues," he said. The head of government also noted the need to increase the volume of industrial processing of apples. "Out of the total volume of fruits in marketable form, about 60% is sold, and 40% is for industrial processing, including for large industries," the Prime Minister reported. In his opinion, not all apples should be sent for storage. "We need to ensure deep processing into final products – preserves, jams, and semi-finished products," Mikhail Myasnikovich summarized. -0-

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