Azerbaijan, Baku, 16 April / corr. Trend S. Babayeva/ The ban on the export of wheat, until the new harvest in September 2008, by Kazakhstan is not a problem for Azerbaijan who imports wheat from this country, said Sabir Valiyev on 16 April, the Head of Department for Production and Processing of Crops and State Control on Food Reserves of the Ministry of Agriculture of Azerbaijan.
"At present we have enough wheat reserves - 573,000 tons, which can meet the demand for five months if necessary," he said.
According to Valiyev, the demand will be met by the home -produced wheat in case the current wheat reserves in Azerbaijan exhausts. The harvest of grain-crops in the country will begin in June and the forecast for harvest for 2008 is placed at 2.3-2.4mln tons.
The representative of Ministry of Agriculture said that the government can begin the talks on purchase of wheat with other countries - Ukraine and Canada, if there is a need.
According to foreign media reports, by banning wheat export, Kazakhstan, the largest wheat producer in the Central Asia, is trying to protect its own domestic market from the affects of price rise in wheat worldwide.
Earlier, Kazakhstan planned to restrict wheat export from 1 March 2008, however the government decided to wait a little with its plan. Meanwhile, Ahmadjan Esimov, the minister of agriculture of Kazakhstan stated that the country can introduce customs duties on wheat export rather than banning the export of wheat.
On 10 April Kazakhstan possessed some 8.1mln tons of wheat, half of which accounts for bread-grain. The export potential of the country makes up 1.2mln tons of bread-grain that can be exported during the course of a month. In 2007, the wheat harvest in Kazakhstan made up over 20mln tons.