Kazakhstan Continues To Flex It's Muscles
Newly promoted into the global grain export Premier League, Kazakhstan has one major problem, it is land-locked. The Black Sea is around 1,500 kilometres away.
So what do you do when you have a record 20 MMT grain crop and no ports to ship it from?
That's right, you buy one.
Plans are afoot to buy a port on the Black Sea from new mates Georgia. The latter has already offered to let Kazakhstan use it's rail network to help get it's wheat to hungry buyers like Egypt.
The ambitious Kazakhs are already in talks with China to build a grain terminal on it's border with China to open up access to the Far East and South East Asia.
Now they are looking at the Georgian port of Poti to open up a gateway into North Africa and Europe.
A deal was recently done to supply Egypt with 1.5 MMT of it's wheat requirements in 2010, and Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev says his country has the capability to double agricultural output by 2014 by embracing new equipment and technology.
Labour is one area where the country has big advantages over the west, the average salary in the agricultural sector in Kazakhstan is around just GBP1,500 per annum.
Still, the women aren't much to look at. Imagine Arthur Mullard in a dress with some lipstick on. That's Miss Kazakhstan that is.
So what do you do when you have a record 20 MMT grain crop and no ports to ship it from?
That's right, you buy one.
Plans are afoot to buy a port on the Black Sea from new mates Georgia. The latter has already offered to let Kazakhstan use it's rail network to help get it's wheat to hungry buyers like Egypt.
The ambitious Kazakhs are already in talks with China to build a grain terminal on it's border with China to open up access to the Far East and South East Asia.
Now they are looking at the Georgian port of Poti to open up a gateway into North Africa and Europe.
A deal was recently done to supply Egypt with 1.5 MMT of it's wheat requirements in 2010, and Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev says his country has the capability to double agricultural output by 2014 by embracing new equipment and technology.
Labour is one area where the country has big advantages over the west, the average salary in the agricultural sector in Kazakhstan is around just GBP1,500 per annum.
Still, the women aren't much to look at. Imagine Arthur Mullard in a dress with some lipstick on. That's Miss Kazakhstan that is.