DUSHANBE, November 1, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- Flour prices have fallen at Dushanbe’s markets.  Specialists attribute the fall in flour prices to increase in current supply of wheat flour to the country.

Taghoymurod Sharipov, the director of the state unity enterprise Ghalla (grain products), says recent agiotage in the grain market has led to massive flour purchases.  According to him, the price for a 50-kilogram sack of grade 1 wheat flour has fallen from 130 somoni in mind-October to 113 somoni.

“A certain saturation of domestic market for flour has been reached because Kazakhstan now delivers more flour than grains,” Sharipov said.

According to the statistical data from Ghalla, the price of one ton of Kazakh wheat is now US$330-US$340 and the price of one ton of Kazakh wheat flour now fluctuates from US$380.00 to US$390.00.

Over the first nine months of this year, Tajikistan has imported 302,600 ton of wheat, which is 63,200 tons more than in the same period last year.  Tajikistan has also imported 257,600 tons of wheat flour over the same nine-month period, which is 10,000 tons more than in January-September 2009.

Tajikistan’s annual requirements in cereals now amount to 1.429 million tons.  Specialists from the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade expect local framers to produce 917,000 tons of grains this year.

In the meantime, Kazakhstan’s website www.kazakh-zerno.kz reports that wheat and corn prices have risen considerably over the past week.  Wheat prices have risen 7-9 percent and corn prices have risen some 2 percent.

We will recall that IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook for Middle East and Central Asia notes that most the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) countries rely only moderately on wheat imports. The recent 85 percent increase in international wheat prices (in the two months up to mid-August) is therefore unlikely to have much of an impact on the region’s import bill.  An exception is Tajikistan, which could face higher import costs of more than ½ percent of GDP during the remainder of 2010. Kazakhstan—a net exporter of wheat—stands to gain, with export receipts potentially increasing by up to 0.3 percent of GDP.