Parliament turned down on March 24 with 70 to 10 votes calls from the lawmakers from Christian-Democratic Movement (CDM) to launch procedures for sacking Agriculture Minister Bakur Kvezereli.

During the parliamentary hearings on March 23, when the Agriculture Minister presented a report to lawmakers, MPs from CDM slammed the government’s agriculture policy and demanded to replace the minister.

Before the voting on March 24 MP Giorgi Targamadze, leader of CDM and of the parliamentary minority, called on the ruling party lawmakers to support Agriculture Minister’s impeachment, arguing that new minister, who would “enjoy with public trust”, was required to tackle challenges the agriculture sector was facing.

Agriculture’s share in the country’s GDP decreased from 14.8% in 2005 to 8.4% in 2010, according to the figures from the state statistics office. Agriculture sector had 1.7% contraction last year, according to the preliminary figures.

President Saakashvili said for number of times recently that the agriculture was the one of the key priorities. In his annual address in the Parliament in February he said that the government would allocate additional GEL 150 million to improve currently “very dissatisfactory situation” in the agriculture. He also said that the goal was to double agriculture production by 2015.