April 3, 2010

Kazakhstan to triple Iran grain shipments

Kazakhstan, Central Asia's largest grain producer, plans to increase shipments through Iran by launching a terminal in an Iranian port and building a new railway link, a senior Kazakh official said on Thursday (April 1).

Kazakhstan shipped one million tonnes of grain to Iran last year over the Caspian Sea, Asylzhan Mamytbekov, the head of state agricultural company KazAgro, said.

Mamytbekov said that a storage facility at the Amirabad terminal will be launched in May. Land-locked Kazakhstan produces over 15 million tonnes of grain a year and exports most of it to Central Asian and Caspian neighbours.

The next step, he said, is to build a new railway link to Iran through Turkmenistan.

"The construction of a railroad connecting (Kazakh) port Aktau with (Iranian city) Gorgan will allow us to increase export capacity to three million tonnes of grain," he said.

The link is due to be launched in late 2011.

Kazakhstan harvested 21 million tonnes of grain, mostly wheat, last year and has introduced export shipping subsidies to help producers sell it in a highly competitive market. It has already exported 5.5 million tonnes in the current season.