Kazakhstan makes efforts to curb high bread prices
The Kazakh Ministry of Agriculture, local executive bodies of the areas and the Food Contract Corporation national company have signed memorandums. They envisage measures being taken to stabilise prices on bread baked from first grade wheat flour and first grade flour in the regions of the country, the Kazakh Agriculture Ministry reported.
These measures were taken to prevent a sharp rise in the price of first grade flour and bread after the national currency devaluation on February 11.
More than 500,000 tons of cheap grain will be allocated from the Food Contract Corporation national company as part of the signed memorandums. The grain is sold to the flour milling companies at a fixed price of 30,000 tenge (VAT included) (184.51 tenge = 1 dollar) per ton. The shipment term is from February 17 to August 2014.
The local executive bodies determine the grain processing enterprises with an appropriate industrial infrastructure, as well as material and human resources through appropriate procedures.
These measures will ensure stability of bread and first grade flour prices and provide livestock enterprises and farms with cheaper bran.
Earlier, the National Bank of Kazakhstan made a decision not to support the exchange rate of the national currency tenge at its previous level, reduce the volume of currency interventions and reduce intervention to the process of establishing the exchange rate of tenge.