April 11, 2012

Kazakhstan's agriculture ministry plans to speed up grain export

Kazakh Minister of Agriculture Asylzhan Mamytbekov is mulling over speeding up grain transshipment for export to empty elevator capacity for the next crop gathering.

To meet this aim Mamytbekov proposed to cancel holidays and weekends for elevators at the governmental meeting on Monday (Apr 9), Kazinform reported.

"There is a lack of carriages, but we solve this problem. However, the elevators do not transship grain in holidays. The local executive bodies should take control over this issue to ensure grain transshipment on weekends and public holidays and not to lose a day," Mamytbekov said.

Mamytbekov said that Kazakhstan transships one million tonnes of grain, 300,000 tonnes of flour annually on average.

Kazakhstan is among the largest grain exporters on the world markets. In 2011 the country had a record harvest of nearly 27 million tonnes of grain in net weight. Kazakhstan's grain export potential was earlier estimated at 15 million tonnes in the current marketing year.