According to the Kazakh Ministry of Agriculture, over the past five years, Kazakhstan’s agricultural exports have grown by 51%, reaching $5.1 billion in 2024. The geography of exports covers 66 countries. The main sales markets remain the neighboring countries of Central Asia, Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) countries (Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia), as well as Iran, Turkey, China, and the EU.
The main export items were wheat, meslin (a mixture of wheat and rye), barley, flaxseed, beef, lamb, frozen fish, wheat flour, sunflower oil, carbonated water, and cotton fiber.
Grain remains Kazakhstan’s key agricultural export product. In 2024, the country exported 8.1 million tons of grain.
From September 2024 to March 18, 2025, Kazakhstan exported 6.3 million tons of new-harvest grain (an increase of 53%) to Central Asian countries (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan), China, Afghanistan, and Europe. Of this, 741,000 tons were shipped to Iran (a 17-fold increase) and 408,000 tons to Azerbaijan.
Last year, the share of processed products in the total agricultural exports reached 52%, totaling $2.7 billion. These products include vegetable oil, flour confectionery, sausages, beef, and lamb.
The Register of Exporters to China now includes over 2,400 Kazakh enterprises that supply safflower meal/cake, peas, lentils, and rapeseed. In 2025, it is planned to open the Chinese market for Kazakh sugar beet cake, and in 2026, for rice, mung bean, cotton, and melons. In the first half of this year, a China-built agricultural quality inspection laboratory is to open in the East Kazakhstan region, which will simplify the export of Kazakh agricultural products to China.
Restrictions on foot-and-mouth disease and bird flu have been lifted in several regions of Kazakhstan, allowing the resumption of exports of meat and meat products to Armenia, China, Russia, and Belarus. Given the growing volumes of horse meat production and, in the near future, of chicken meat, Kazakhstan is currently looking for export markets for these types of meat.
