August 29, 2011

Kazakhstan attempts to export grain to China

Kazakhstan hopes to ship approximately three million tonnes of grain to China this year, according to the Food Contract Corporation Chairman, Beybithan Kabdrakhmanov, on Friday (Aug 26).

"We will export three million tonnes of grain to China this year," Kabdrakhmanov said.

He said the company attempted to export three million tonnes of grain to China and other countries in Southeast Asia through transit, but to no avail.

Earlier, the Kazakh Food Corporation and Chinese corporation COFCO reached an agreement on the grain supply to China. The Food Corporation expressed its readiness to deliver up to 150,000 tonnes of the high-quality Kazakh wheat to the Chinese market on a monthly basis.

The Chinese side's main demand was the high quality of Kazakh wheat. To improve flour produced from the Chinese raw materials, the country needs to mix it with corn containing gluten at more than 28%. The Kazakh grain has these qualities.

However, Kazakhstan's wheat faces difficulties in entering the Chinese market as the Chinese government always sets a quota on imports of wheat at 9.6 million tonnes, pursuing the policy of control and restriction of imports of goods from abroad. This is linked with China's state programme to support its agricultural producers.

According to the Chinese Statistics Agency, the number of population employed in agriculture hits about 800 million people, nearly 50% of the total population.

The Kazakh Agriculture Ministry expects that the harvest will be above average, some 19 million tonnes in 2011.