Azerbaijan in top five countries-importers of Russian grain

By Azernews

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan imported 917,600 tons of grain from Russia in the second half of 2016, Russia's Federal Center for evaluation of safety and quality of grain and products of its processing declared on January 16.

The share of Azerbaijan in Russia’s overall index of the grain exports amounted to 3.8 percent, thereby making Azerbaijan the fifth in the list of Russian grain importers.

In general, Russia exported 20.8 million tons of grains during the last six months of 2016. A total of 16.32 million tons of them made up the export of wheat.

Most products were exported to Turkey – 3.61 million tons (15 percent of total grains exports). Next positions were taken by Egypt (3.44 million tons/14.3 percent), Bangladesh (1.63 million tons/6.8 percent) and Iran (1,08 million tons/4.5 percent).

The State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan reported that the country produced 2.84 million tons of grain in January-November 2016, which made up 1.97 percent more than the indicator of the same period in 2015. An average of 29.5 hundredweight were collected per hectare.

In general, Azerbaijan satisfies its demand for grains by 70-80 percent through domestic production. The remaining demand is met through imports, mainly from Russia and Kazakhstan.

Russia remains one of Azerbaijan’s main foreign trade partners. The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Russia totaled $739.8 million in January-May 2016, according to Azerbaijan’s State Customs Committee.

Some 170 agreements, with 50 being in the sphere of economy have been so far concluded between the two countries.