AVA - Kazakhstan to double wheat supplies to Afghanistan

The company’s CEO, Artur Akhmetov, said in a statement that, Kazakhstan’s Altyn Astyk Group intends to supply 100,000 tons of soft wheat to Afghanistan between September 2023 and May 2024, .

Afghan Voice Agency (AVA)_Monitoring, “Today, within the framework of the Kazakh-Afghan forum, our company is planning to sign a contract for the supply of soft wheat to Afghanistan for a total of $23 million. The volume is about 100,000 tons from this year’s crop to be delivered from September to May. We have been the wheat suppliers to Afghanistan for the past five years. However, we plan to double the supplies from 50,000 tonnes we supplied previously,” Akhmetov told reporters on the forum’s sidelines on Thursday, Interfax reported.

According to the statement, Afghanistan was the company’s leading trade partner purchasing wheat and flour.

“We faced certain hurdles during the change of government and had to resolve the logistic and payment issues. Now we can say that it is possible working with these companies. One of our main goals is to keep our presence in the Afghan market and increase our supplies,” Akhmetov said.

On the other hand, the deputy prime minister and minister of trade and integration of Kazakhstan, Serik Zhumangarin, said his country aims to increase the supply of flour to Afghanistan.

“Over the four months of this year, over 450,000 tonnes of Kazakh flour worth $150.8 million were supplied to Afghanistan via Uzbekistan. High transportation tariffs for Kazakh grain through Uzbekistan towards Afghanistan prompt us to find other transportation options to increase our exports and meet the demand in the Afghan market,” he said.

Nuruddin Azizi, Afghanistan’s acting minister of industry and trade, requested favourable tariffs for Afghan imports and discounts on wheat and flour supply.