Kazakhstan Plans to Increase Its Export of Crops to China

Kazakhstani farmers harvested 63% of grain fields of 15.8 million hectares. As the Ministry of Agriculture forecasts, the harvest may amount to 18 million tons. Kazakhstan can export about eight million tons of grain in this marketing year (from July 1 2020 to June 30, 2021).

According to Saparkhan Omarov, the head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Kazakhstan is going to increase its export of wheat into China.

«We are planning to increase the volume of wheat and flour export to China. This year we expect about 18 million tons in the harvest and may export all of this wheat,» he said.

As Omarov noted, as of September 7 farmers already harvested about 11.5 million tons of wheat or 9.8 million hectares (63% of all crops).

The main importers of Kazakhstan’s wheat and flour are Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Iran. This year they are going to import Kazakhstani crops as usual, according to Omarov. 

The total area of crops in Kazakhstan is about 22.7 million hectares including wheat (12.1 million hectares), oil crops (2.9), vegetables and potatoes (457.4 thousand hectares), cotton (125.8 thousand), sugar beet (20.9 thousand hectares) and forage crops (3.3 million hectares).

In the 2020-2021 marketing year, Kazakhstan has exported 52.3 thousand tons of wheat to China and 454,000 tons to Uzbekistan. In total, the country has exported 648.8 thousand tons of wheat excluding flour.

The ending inventories as of August 1 have amounted to three million tons of wheat.