Smolensk oblast plans to increase by 2030, the yield of flax complex in 48 times and obtain 9 billion rubles of revenue, said the Governor Aleksey Ostrovsky the first national day of flax fields, which on Tuesday opened in the region.

"Today, the Smolensk region is the core region for the development of the linen complex of the Russian Federation, and we have set ourselves the ambitious task of returning the region's leadership position in the production and export of flax. Flax is a promising export crop, and we have all the prerequisites for 2030 to increase the yield of flax complex of the region in 48 times and obtain 9 billion rubles of revenue from the sale of flax, which will be 30% of the total revenue of agricultural production", - he said.

In Soviet times, in the Smolensk region produced 10% of all flax in the country, but by 2011, the flax in the region "declined". Since that time government began to help the industry, invested about 300 million rubles in aid, has attracted about 1 billion rubles of investments. Now the acreage of flax is about 5 thousand hectares, and by 2020 plans to increase to 20 thousand hectares.