NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan (Reuters) — Kazakhstan will soon ban exports of livestock until April and may later extend the ban to protect the domestic market where meat prices have surged, the Central Asian nation’s agriculture ministry said Jan. 20.
Kazakh beef and cattle exports roughly doubled last year, helped by higher global prices against the backdrop of a severe protein shortage in neighbouring China and growing demand from another neighbour, Uzbekistan.
Kazakhstan sells little meat directly to China because only a handful of local suppliers have the required certificates. But local beef prices jumped 16 percent last year as producers took advantage of other export opportunities.
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A ministry spokesperson said the government was in the final stages of issuing an order banning livestock exports, whose surge the ministry blamed for creating “the basis for a speculative increase in the prices of meat products.”
Asylzhan Mamytbekov, chair of Kazakhstan’s Meat Union, an industry lobby group, criticized the move as going against the rules of market economy.
“This is a retrograde approach and I think everyone will realise it is mistaken, although this will take time,” he told a briefing.
