Kazakhstan's grain exports fall, harvest 58 pct complete

ASTANA: Kazakhstan's grain exports fell to 1.04 million tonnes between the beginning of this marketing year on July 1 and Sept. 20, from 1.38 million tonnes in the same period a year earlier, data from the Agriculture Ministry showed on Monday.

Kazakhstan, Central Asia's largest producer and exporter of grain, has to date threshed 9.5 million tonnes of grain from 58 percent of this year's total sown area, the ministry said.

This compares with 12.3 million tonnes harvested from 65 percent of the area a year earlier.

Kazakhstan, a vast steppe nation of 17 million which is also known for its huge oil and gas reserves, began massive grain harvesting in its main northern grain belt in early September.

The country expects to harvest 14-15 million tonnes by clean weight this year, the state grain trader and the Agriculture Ministry said last month..

This is below last year's crop of 18.2 million tonnes, but well above the harvest of 12.9 million tonnes in 2012 when a severe drought hit.

Grain yields have so averaged 1.09 tonnes per hectare, down from 1.21 tonnes in the same period of 2013, Agriculture Ministry data showed. Wheat traditionally makes up some 90 percent of Kazakhstan's grain harvests.

A senior Agriculture Ministry official has said Kazakhstan has export potential of between 6 million and 8 million tonnes in the 2014/15 marketing year.

Kazakhstan's grain exports rose to 8.709 million tonnes in the 2013/14 marketing year from 7.023 million tonnes in the previous season.

Kazakhstan traditionally exports its grain to ex-Soviet Central Asian neighbours and the Caspian Sea states of Iran and Azerbaijan.

Kazakhstan has also set sights on the market of its giant neighbour China, and state grain trader The Food Contract Corporation said last month it had signed a contract with China's largest grain trader COFCO Corp on deliveries of 125,000 tonnes of grain in the 2014/14 season.