These trends forced Kazakh importers to look for alternatives to the expensive Polish apples, whose import volumes fell during the period at hand by 44%, down to 33 thousand tons. Iranian apples became an affordable alternative. While Kazakhstan had hardly bought any Iranian apples before, in the first five months of 2018, it imported 9.5 thousand tons.
The supply of apples from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan also increased. Thanks to the development of the infrastructure for storing apples in Uzbekistan, as well as to the expansion of the acreage devoted to apple orchards, this country began to actively ship apples to Kazakhstan in the winter-spring period. And although the volume supplied remained insignificant (only about 1.3 thousand tons in the first five months of the year), there was still a positive trend.
China also took advantage of the situation, increasing the supply of its products to Kazakhstan and bringing the volume exported to a record 12 thousand tons during the period at hand. In 2017, China supplied 21.1 thousand tons of apples to Kazakhstan, becoming the second largest supplier of fresh apples, after Poland.
According to EastFruit forecasts, Uzbekistan will further increase its presence in the Kazakhstan market in the 2018-19 season, supplying 8 to 10 thousand tons. It is expected that the export of apples from Poland will also recover, as in 2018 the country will harvest a record production, which, according to some estimates, could reach 5 million tons. This means that up to 100 thousand tons could be exported by Poland to Kazakhstan in the entire season. It is also not a secret that part of the Polish products arriving in Kazakhstan will likely end up on the Russian market.
Source: east-fruit.com
