Russia Offers Belarus to Impose a Ban on Grain Export

06.08.2010 09:18
Архив Редакция

Russian government imposes a temporary ban on grain export from August 15 to December 31, 2010 because of the drought and proposed to apply similar measures in other member states of the Customs Union — Belarus and Kazakhstan. The order to bring this issue to be examined by the commission of the CU was given to Ministry of Economic Development by Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin.

Kazakhstan has already reacted to Russian proposal. According to the executive secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic, Yevgeny Aman, Astana does not consider it reasonable to impose a ban on grain export, and it is too early to talk about this, RIA Novosti informs.

«Grain Union of Kazakhstan (public organization, which unites the country’s large grain farms), bearing in mind past experience, when such a ban was introduced, asked the government not to impose a ban (on grain export). We have the amount of grain for domestic needs and will have it in the future, and to impose a ban on exports means to break signed contracts, lose markets we have just come out», the representative of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Agriculture argued.

«We have better weather conditions this year than in Russia, and if the harvest forecast is right, and we may tell about it only in September, when we see output of grain, it will become clear grain yield and quality, then we’ll have no need to introduce a ban on exports. It’s too early to talk about it (a ban on export) now, we’ll always have time to ban if it’s necessary», Yevgeny Aman said.

Russian proposal to ban grain export has not been commented In Belarus yet.

Russian ban on grain export has inflated world prices

After Russia’s Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, imposed a temporary ban on grain export from Russia caused by extreme weather conditions, the price of wheat at Chicago Stock Exchange reached 23-month maximum, Business & Baltia informs referring to Bloomberg.

The price of bushel (about 35 liters) of wheat with delivery in December increased in the U.S. by 8% at once — up to 8.155 dollars, while wheat with delivery in September costs 7.856 dollars. Prices growth is also observed at Paris Grain Exchange.

Russia’s ban on grain exports is related to the fact that forecasts for grain harvest this year were reduced by the Ministry of Agriculture from 90-95 to 70-75 million tons. In 2008, in Russia they harvested 107 million tons of grain, and last year Russia harvested 97 million tons of grain and exported more than 20 million tons, occupying 13% of the world grain market.

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