New rules for inspection of grain cargo entering the country were introduced on October 4 by the General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China. This has seriously complicated the situation with the export of Kazakh grain cargo to China. This was reported by the KTZ company.
If earlier samples for safety analysis were taken randomly from one container out of 10, now samples are taken from every third container. That is, from 20 containers of each train (there are 62 containers in each train).
Accordingly, if the procedure previously took 5-7 days, now it has been extended to 10 days. As a result, there was an accumulation of containers at the inspection sites of the Chinese stations of Khorgos and Alashankou. Now there are a total of 4,500 Kazakh containers with grain cargo waiting to be sent to customers.
To reduce the load, the Urumqi Railway has reduced the number of trains received from Kazakhstan by three times: from daily to one every three days.
As a result, the situation has become more complicated at all Kazakhstan railway stations where wagons are loaded in the direction of China.
It should be noted that problems with shipments to China periodically worsen throughout the year. This has already led to a decrease in grain exports from Kazakhstan to China in containers by 24% (260 thousand tons) compared to 2023.
At the same time, the grain harvest in Kazakhstan this year is 55% higher than last year. The current situation exacerbates the issue of preserving the harvest in Kazakhstan and threatens the economic well-being of the entire agricultural sector.
In this regard, KTZ has written a letter to all competent government agencies in the country asking for assistance in negotiations with the Chinese side on normalizing the shipment scheme.