Azerbaijan, Baku, 6 February / corr. Trend S. Babayeva/ In 2008, as compared to the previous year, a record volume of grain production is expected in Azerbaijan, the minister of agriculture of Azerbaijan said.
According to the minister, in 2008, the area under crop cultivation is almost extended by 130,000 hectares. "It gives us ground to expect the rise in the bread-grain by 300,000 tons," minister said.
According to Abbasov, however, it will still not be able to meet the grain demand of the country to and the remaining part of the grain will be imported. Azerbaijan imports grain mainly from Russia, Turkey and Kazakhstan.
The annual demand of Azerbaijan for the grain totals 3 mln tons and 1 mln of this amount is imported. The annual demand of Azerbaijan to the bread-grain amounts to 1.53 mln tons, the monthly demand to 129,064 tons.
According to State Statistics Committee, in 2007- the production of grain-crops in Azerbaijan totaled 2 mln tons, out of which 1.33 mln accounted for wheat.