Actuality September, 03, 2007

Russia might freeze grain export, as British newspaper Financial Times writes. According to the version of this periodical, this measure can be applied because of the fact that close to December State Duma elections the bread prices are kept up.
On August, 10 the Minister of Agriculture of Russia Aleksey Gordeyev said, that authorities are not going to carry on grain interventions on home market because of excess of grain. As he said, it was threshed 40 million tons of wheat, or for 8 million tons more than in 2006. The minister promised, that this problem would be re-examined in September.

Now the grain prices on the world market have broken the historical records. On the Parisian exchange ton of wheat costs 272 euros, and in Chicago it has exceeded $293 per ton. Because of these rumors about possible prohibition of grain export from Russia some importers, such as Egypt and India, are actively increasing resource their wheat reserves.

Russia takes the fifth place in the world in terms of wheat export volume, selling 12 million tons of this crop a year. In June the authorities of Ukraine, which is the sixth grain exporter in the world, imposed prohibitory duties for wheat export. Annually the country exports about 10 million tons of grain.

Wheat world’s reserves have gone to 26-year minimum. It is caused by a great demand on it from developing countries, and also poor harvest in Australia, Europe and Canada.

It will be recalled that earlier Russia suggested to the largest exporters of grain to create a cartel which would inspect world wheat trade. This proposal was already supported by the authorities of Ukraine and Kazakhstan.