In comparison with last year the price of apples has increased by 15-20%, reports analysts from the project “APK-Inform: vegetables and fruits”. Today, farmers are selling apples for 250-300 tenge/kg (€0.81-0.97/kg), while in October last year, prices from Kazakhstan farms were formed in the range of 220-250 tenge/kg (€0.71-0.81/kg). Market participants attributed the rise in prices primarily to the rise in prices of imported goods, due to the devaluation of the tenge and the relatively high prices in the supplier countries.
According to “APK-Inform: vegetables and fruits”, the Kazakhstan market is very heavily dependent on imports, in spite of the fairly dynamic growth in domestic production. The analysts evaluate that today almost 80% of the market’s demand for table apples is covered by imports, and Poland is the main supplier of this product to Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan imports a fairly large amount of apples, even during the period of active harvesting of their own crops: on the international markets from September to October, Kazakhstan buys between 20,000 to 25,000 tons of apples, which is approximately 15% of the annual volume of imports.
Experts predict further increases in the price of apples in Kazakhstan. The period of the most intensive price rises will be in November and December, as a rule, in these two months table apple prices add another 15-20%.
More information on the major trends of domestic production and international trade of apples in Kazakhstan, is available in the study "Apples of Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan - 2015: state and prospects of growing, storing, handling, processing and marketing.”
