Azerbaijan, Lankaran, 22 April / corr. Trend U. Ismayilova, P. Aliyeva/ The bakeries producing bread in Azerbaijani regions are facing the problem of drop in profitability of production, the regional correspondent of Trend said on 22 April.
Most bakeries in Lankaran have decreased the weight of bread worth AZN0.20 from 400gr to 360gr due to the rise in flour prices, heads of the bakeries said. One sack of 50kg of flour costs AZN27 while it cost AZN24.4 10 days ago.
"The drop in weight of bread is the only way out of the situation as the population reacts more aggressive toward the price rise than toward drop in the weight," bread producers said.
The annual demand of Azerbaijan to grain totals to 3mln tons, 1mln of which is imported mainly from Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. Last week, Ukraine imposed a ban on export of grain until September harvest in order to protect its domestic market from the bad influence of rise in grain worldwide.
On 22 April, Heydar Babayev, the minister of economic development of Azerbaijan denied information on shortage of grain in Azerbaijan. "It is wrong information. We have enough grain resources both from import and home production," minister said. According to Babayev, the government will not allow shortage to take place. However, Minister confirmed the information about rise in bread prices.
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