DUSHANBE (Satrapia) — According to the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Tatarstan, for the period until July 3, the country has harvested over 432.7 thousand tons of cereals corresponding to more than 303.9 thousand hectares.

About 360 thousand tons of wheat (at an average price of $224 per ton) was imported by Tajikistan for the first five months of this year, which is 23.8 thousand tons less than the same period of 2016. The price of imported wheat was $75.8 mln. In general, imported wheat was from Kazakhstan.

Import of flour for this period amounted to 23.4 thousand tons, which is almost two times less than the same period of last year. For the first five months of last year 42.6 thousand tons of flour were imported. Flour, as well as wheat, was mainly imported from Kazakhstan.

The Ministry of Economy says that subsidies have been granted to increase domestic production in wheat imports. In particular, when importing wheat, VAT is only 10%. Several flour mills have been established in the country, which gradually increase domestic production.

In 2016 Tajikistan imported over 1.341 mln tons of wheat and about 88.8 thousand tons of flour.

Currently, the cost of one bag of the first grade of flour weighing 50 kg of Kazakhstan’s production in the markets of Dushanbe is 175-180 somoni while the domestic production is 165 somoni.