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Kyrgyzstan

Price Monitoring for Food Security in the Kyrgyz Republic - Annual Review 2017

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Summary

This is an overview of key food commodity price changes during 2017, with comparisons to prices in 2016 and the past five years. This is a secondary data review and therefore limited in scope to the availability of data. During 2017 the prices of key food commodities (wheat flour, meat (beef and mutton), milk, rice, sugar and vegetable oil) were stable in all monitored markets of the country, with the exception of some vegetables (potatoes, carrots and cabbage).

Wheat and wheat flour are the main consumed staple food for the population of the Kyrgyz Republic.

• The country meets 96.9 percent of its needs through domestic production. However, due to the low gluten content of the domestically grown wheat (less than 20 percent), it is not suitable for processing and milling. As a result, imported wheat and wheat flour constituted 48 percent of the domestic market in 2017. The country relies on the import of wheat and wheat flour from neighbouring Kazakhstan in particular, making the Kyrgyz Republic vulnerable to external price volatility and foreign exchange fluctuations.

• The growing needs of the population are being met by imports rather than increased domestic production. Domestic production is stagnant: in 2017, the country produced 601,000 tons of wheat, nine percent lower than the production in 2016. In contrast, from January to September 2017 the country imported over 338,810 tons of wheat or wheat products into the country, 54 percent higher than in 2016.

• Global wheat production in 2016/2017 was estimated to be 754 million tons, representing the highest global wheat production of all time, with 736 million tons consumed in the same year. According to the forecast of the International Grain Council , global wheat production should reach the second highest recorded amount in the 2017/18 period with 749 million tons expected to be produced, which would be only one percent lower compared to the 2016/17 period.

• In October 2017 after the Presidential elections in the country on the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border have been observed trade flow issues, which delayed the inflow of goods into the Kyrgyz Republic. However, it didn’t affect the prices for wheat flour, bread and “lepeshka” ; prices for wheat products were stable on a month-on-month basis during the delay period. The prices for wheat flour increased by 1.19%, bready by 1.12%, diesel prices by 2.21%, petrol (AI-92) by 2 percent on a month-on-month basis8 .
However, the situation stabilized and trade flow has been recovered in November 2017.

Vegetables

The prices for the vegetables monitored were abnormally high between February and July 2017 due to the rain dominated spring, which delayed the planting season for many vegetables. The prices for potatoes, carrots and cabbage were 60, 32 and 37 percent higher respectively than the average prices in 2016.

Other Food Commodities

• The prices for sugar, meat, milk and vegetable oil were stable across the year, with expected seasonal fluctuations.

Agricultural share of GDP

• Agricultural production accounted for 14.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between January and September 2017, which is 4 percent lower than the same period in 2016. Despite a significant increase in the prices of certain food products (potatoes, carrots and cabbage), the inflation rate was 3.7 percent in 2017. It had a minimal impact on the overall purchasing power of households and should therefore not have unduly constrained the budgets of the poorest households in the country.

Minimum Subsistence Level

• The minimum subsistence per capita reached 4901 KGS, which is by 2 percent higher compared to the 2016. The average wage in the country increased by 6.4 percent compared to the same period in 2016 (January to September) . Exchange Rate

• The US dollar, Russian ruble and Kazakh tenge remained relatively stable against the Kyrgyz som (national currency) during 2017. Currency movements are among the main driving forces of the retail prices of imported basic food commodities including wheat, vegetable oil and sugar. Remittances

• During 2017, the remittances inflow increased substantially reaching a record high (2.030 billion US dollars), which is 24 percent higher than in 2016. It is important to note that the poverty rate significantly increases from 25.4 percent to 31.5 percent when household income from remittances are excluded indicating a high dependency on remittances especially among the poorest population.