Azerbaijan, Baku, 5 July / Trend , corr. I. Khalilova/ The import of grain to Azerbaijan from other countries can be solved on the inter-government level in case of necessity at the end of summer, but there is no shortage of grain at present, Heydar Babayev, minister of economic development of Azerbaijan said. The first harvest is being gathered at the moment and additional grain demand will be determined after the harvest is gathered in.
In 2008, Azerbaijan is expected to achieve record harvest as the area sown under grain has been enlarged almost by 130,000 ha to 601,000 ha which is expected to lead to the increase in bread-grain by 300,000 ha. However, Azerbaijan is not able to fully meet grain demand of the country by the domestic production.
According to minister, the measures taken by the government to enlarge sown areas and granting subsidies to farmers had a positive impact on the volume of grain output. There was no shortage of grain this year as the private businesses regulates the situation and sings lucrative contracts.
The number of states importing grain to Azerbaijan can increase as Russia has already canceled export and custom dues and Ukraine is also interested in the export, Babayev said.
On 29 January 2008, Russia imposed custom dues on the grain export worth €105 a ton. The customs dues on grain export from Russia proved to be unprofitable and Ukraine ceased the grain export at that time. As a result, Kazakhstan became the only grain exporting market with which the Azerbaijani importers are working at present.
The grain output is expected to increase by 2.5mln tons in Azerbaijan in 2008. Some 700,000-800,000 tons of grain can be imported in 2008 while the same figure made up 1,411,000 tons in 2007, Ministry of Agriculture said.
The domestic grain-crop output made up 2mln tons in 2007, 1.3mln tons of which accounted for the bread-grain. The annual grain demand of the country makes up 1.530mln tons, monthly demand - 129.640 tons and per head demand a month - 180kg. As a whole, demands for grain crops are evaluated at 3mln tons a year in Azerbaijan.
The Azerbaijani government plans to totally stop grain import by 2010.
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