The export of early potatoes is not such a significant position in Uzbekistan’s fresh fruits and vegetables segment. However, the volume of deliveries of Uzbek potatoes to Kazakhstan in May-July this year reached a record high for at least the last two decades, EastFruit analysts say.
The first large batches of new crop potatoes this season appeared on the wholesale markets of the country in the first ten days of April this year, about three weeks later than last year. Due to the abnormally cold weather observed in Uzbekistan in January of this year, the planting of potatoes in the country’s southern regions started three weeks later than last year, and, accordingly, the potato harvest has shifted by the same period.
However, despite this, a stable downward trend has formed in wholesale prices for these products. If last year the fall in prices for potatoes of the new crop stopped at the end of April, then this year, the wholesale prices for these products continued to decline until the end of June. As EastFruit already wrote, starting from May 20, the prices for potatoes from the current year’s harvest in Uzbekistan are significantly lower than last year’s. Relatively low prices have become one of the factors to stimulate the export of these products.
If last year the Uzbek potato export season ended in the third decade of May, this year, the shipment of the first batches of this product to foreign markets began only in the middle of the third decade of May. However, despite the late start, in May-July of this year, Uzbekistan exported a record volume of new crop potatoes to neighboring Kazakhstan, at least over the past 20 years.
According to preliminary trade statistics, from May 21 to July 20, 2023, Uzbekistan exported almost 4 thousand tons of potatoes, and all this volume was supplied to the markets of two neighboring countries: over 3.9 thousand tons to Kazakhstan and about 40 tons.
If we consider the dynamics of the export of Uzbek potatoes to Kazakhstan over the past few years, then for the whole of 2022, Uzbekistan exported 2.4 thousand tons of potatoes to neighboring Kazakhstan, and for the total of 2021 – 2.2 thousand tons. Over the past two decades, the previous record for exporting Uzbek potatoes to Kazakhstan was set in 2019 – 3 thousand tons.
Thus, in May-July 2023, the volume of exports of Uzbek potatoes to Kazakhstan exceeded the previous record figure in 2019 by 30%.
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