Kazakhstan’s Grain Market Faces Decline in Export Activity

A decline in exporter activity has been recorded in Kazakhstan’s wheat market. The reason is the ongoing uncertainty related to the new Tax Code requirement reducing the VAT offset by 80% when exporting agricultural products. As the market searches for new price benchmarks, grain export volumes from the country are decreasing. This was reported by Yevgeny Karabanov, Head of the Analytical Committee of the Grain Union of Kazakhstan.

According to him, price conditions on the domestic market have not changed significantly over the past week. However, current quotations are largely nominal, as the number of concluded transactions has decreased. Many exporters have taken a wait-and-see approach and temporarily suspended grain purchases.

During the reporting period, prices for Class 5 wheat fell by 1,000 tenge per ton to 85,000–89,000 tenge per ton. Class 3 wheat with 27% gluten also decreased by 1,000 tenge to 104,000–108,000 tenge per ton. Class 3 wheat with 30+ gluten declined by 2,000 tenge and is trading at 123,000–127,000 tenge per ton.

Export quotations for wheat remained unchanged after a sharp increase the previous week. As noted by Yevgeny Karabanov, foreign buyers are assessing further developments and are not rushing to conclude contracts on a large scale.

In the barley segment, export offers increased by $5 per ton at the beginning of last week on FOB Aktau terms. At the same time, trade with Iran is currently impossible due to the military actions initiated by the United States and Israel against Iran.

In the DAP Saryagash and DAP Dostyk/Altynkol directions, barley prices remained unchanged at $255–260 and $235–240 per ton, respectively.