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Uzbekistan to increase wheat import

19 August 2014 15:42 (UTC+04:00)
Uzbekistan to increase wheat import

By Aynur Jafarova

Uzbekistan plans to increase the import of wheat up to 2.1 million tons in 2014-2015 season.

This is due to the increase in demand for high-quality flour, the Foreign Agricultural Service at USDA (FAS USDA) said.

Import of wheat in the country amounted to 1.95 million tons in the last season.

FAS USDA predicts Uzbekistan's domestic consumption of wheat in the current season will increase by seven percent and reach 65 million tons, some 1.95 million tons of which will be used for forage purposes.

Flour import will make 1.3 million tons versus nearly one million tons in the previous season.

This year in Uzbekistan have harvested some 8.05 million tons of grain, which is 270,000 tons more compared to 2013. The harvest in 2013 amounted to 7.61 million tons of grain. The grain harvest rose 5.8 percent this year.

The domestic need of the wheat in Uzbekistan with a population of 30 million people is over four million tons.

Due to Uzbekistan's climatic conditions the country cannot grow hard wheat required for bakery, confectionery and pasta, and it covers this need by imports.

During the past few years Uzbekistan adopted a number of measures aimed at increasing the production of flour. However, Uzbekistan remains a major importer of wheat flour. Many private bakeries prefer to use high quality Kazakh wheat flour.

Purchase and storage of grain for state needs, provision of economic sectors and population by high quality varieties of flour, cereals, animal feed as well as bread, pasta and confectionery is implemented by the Uzdonmahsulot Joint Stock Company, which consists of 48 mills.

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