According to the company’s management, these supplies are supposed to cover processors’ seasonal deficits of raw meat and eliminate middlemen from the livestock supply chain to lower consumer prices (rather than to support prices for producers). Since the beginning of its operations in 2001, KAP’s total expenditures on purchases of livestock products have not exceeded USD 20 million, averaging around KZT 1.2 billion (USD 8 million) in 2009-11 (Figure 2.7). Thus, the activity of KAP as a state buyer of livestock products is limited and unlikely to have a significant impact on producer prices. In 2007, KAP made intervention purchases of meat, for which KZT 1 billion (USD 8 million) were allocated, and in 2008 it spent KZT 795 million (USD 7 million) on imports of milk powder to supply milk plants. This was undertaken to limit consumer prices during the exceptional increase in 2008 of world milk prices. It was introduced in 2008 in response to recent price volatility on world agricultural markets.