Kazakhstan will introduce quotas for wheat and flour exports from April 15. This move is necessary to cut the deficit in the domestic market and load the flour mills, Tengrinews.kz reported citing First Vice Minister of Agriculture Aidarbek Saparov.
Quotas shall be valid from April 15 to June 15. The volume of the quota for wheat will be 1 million tons, for flour - 300 thousand tons.
From April to June, authorization will be given for the export of 300 thousand tons of flour, 10% of this volume, exporters will have to deliver to the Food Corporation, which is engaged in the storage of a reserve stock of grain in Kazakhstan.
In recent years, Kazakhstan has annually produced about 3 million tons of wheat, of which about half is exported. In mid-March, Russia, the largest supplier of grain to Kazakhstan, imposed a ban on the export of grain to the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan). The grain ban applies to wheat and meslin, rye, barley and corn and will last through June 30.
By a government decree dated March 31, Uzbekistan planned to purchase 100,000 tons of third-grade wheat from Kazakhstan (part of this volume is flour) at affordable prices in April-July. Given the small volume, the introduction of quotas should not affect the country's plans to purchase grain in Kazakhstan.
Forecasts for the wheat harvest in Ukraine, where hostilities continue, are unstable, and the World Food Organization and the World Bank continue to publish disappointing reports of rising grain prices. According to the FAO, world wheat prices rose by 19.7% in March.
The World Bank notes that in recent weeks, restrictions and bans on grain exports introduced by 35 countries could lead to the worst food crisis in the world indecades and the most tragic consequences.
