Uzbekistan grain crop higher in 2003

Uzbekistan, keen to achieve self-sufficiency in grain, last year harvested a record 5.781 million tonnes of grain by bunker weight, up from 5.420 million tonnes in 2002, the State Statistics Committee said on Thursday.
The committee, which gave no data for the Central Asian state's crop by clean weight, said wheat accounted for 5.612 million tonnes in 2003, up from 5.183 million tonnes a year.
Three to five percent of grains are lost in processing.
Uzbekistan, a largely agrarian nation of 25 million which heavily relies on exports of gold and cotton, set an ambitious target of achieving self-sufficiency in grain in the mid 1990s.
Due to drought, the task was accomplished only last year.