TURKMENISTAN (6 June)
Cereal harvesting has began and official forecasts point an aggregate cereal harvest of about 3 million tonnes, some 200 000 tonnes up on last year’s hitherto record harvest and more than 870 000 tonnes up on the five-year average harvest. The forecast harvest includes some 2.8 million tonnes of wheat, 110 000 tonnes of paddy rice and some 60 000 tonnes of barley. The government intends to export some 150 000 tonnes of wheat and import 40 000 tonnes of hard wheat and some 4 000 tonnes of rice.