Kazakhstan, Astana, April 2 / Trend D.Mukhtarov /
Kazakhstan has increased its wheat exports in Azerbaijan, Kazakh Grain Union President Nurlan Tleubayev said in an exclusive interview with Trend on Monday.
"So, if on the basis of 2010-2011 marketing year, Kazakhstan exported 620,000 tons of wheat to Azerbaijan, as for 7 months of the current marketing year 874,000 tons were exported to Baku. Given the fact that we still have another five months before the end of this marketing year, we can clearly assume that the growth in exports of our grain to Azerbaijan will be 60-70 percent," Tleubayev said.
He said the traditional volume of Kazakh grain shipments to Azerbaijan have been at the level of 700,000-800,000 tons per year.
"The growth of Kazakhstan's exports in the current marketing year is due to the fact that prices for Kazakh and Russian grain became equal. In addition, Kazakh grain has a higher quality, with more than 22 percent of the gluten. That's why Azerbaijan chose to buy our grain," said the head of the Grain Union of Kazakhstan.
He also added that during the last marketing year the grain was cheaper in Russia than in Kazakhstan and at that time Azerbaijan preferred Russian goods.
The head of the Grain Union of Kazakhstan said the republic in the 2011-2012 marketing year will be able to export grain in the amount of 13 million tons.
"We had a bumper crop last year. Seven months of our marketing year have passed," he said.
Kazakhstan is among the largest grain exporters on world markets. In 2011 the republic had a record harvest - nearly 27 million tons of grain in net weight. Earlier it was reported that Kazakhstan plans to export 15 million tons of grain in the 2011-2012 marketing year. In the marketing new year, according to preliminary estimates of Ministry of Agriculture, crop yields will be about 15 million tons.