ASTANA. July 13. KAZINFORM - Experts forecast Kazakhstan’s grain export price hikes in 2007. The price hikes “can be explained not by high harvest, but by the situation on foreign markets, mainly in Russia and Ukraine,” the head of the Kazakh Agriculture Ministry’s phitosanitary security department, Anna Buts, told Itar-Tass on Friday. Domestic prices for grain purchases, including those to renovate the state grain reserves, will make up 114 US dollars per tonne as against 102 US dollars over the same period in 2006. As for domestic prices for flour and bread products experts forecast no changes and pledge they will remain at the same level. This year Kazakhstan’s grain output is expected to reach 18 million tonnes of grain. Kazakhstan’s domestic demand does not exceed 9 million tonnes of grain and another 9 million tonnes the Central Asian republic will export to foreign countries, Kazinform cites Itar-Tass.