Kazakhstan lost leadership in flour export

For the first time in the last four years Kazakhstan lost the world leadership in flour export and ranked fourth. Russia is rated first, followed by Turkey on the second place and Ukraine on the third place, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Kazakh-Zerno company's expert Alimbek Gabitov. As per Gabitov, in February 2011 Russia exported 35-36 thousand tons of flour. This is three times the amount exported in January 2011 and twice the amount exported in February 2010. Azerbaijan that used to purchase flour from Kazakhstan has increased its flour import from Russia almost six-fold in the past month. Russia's flour deliveries to Transcaucasus, Central Asia and Turkey increased four-fold. Flour export to Indonesia grew as well. “This happened because of our wheat prices are high. Russian wheat is $100 cheaper than ours. For example, one ton of wheat costs around 42-43 thousand tenge ($300) at our end while Russian wheat costs 5-6 thousand roubles ($200). This makes us noncompetitive and cuts our export,” said Gabitov. Kazakh millers say that should the cost of local wheat keep rising, it would become more feasible to simply buy flour from Russia and resell it. During three months of 2011 Kazakhstan exported 117 thousand tons of flour. Compared to the same period of 2009 Kazakhstan under-exported 450-500 thousand tons of flour.