MOSCOW: Russia’s Agriculture Ministry hopes to receive government permission to export some of its grain stockpile in September, it said in a proposal published on the government website www.regulation.gov.ru. The ministry has been considering exporting 500,000 tonnes of grain from its 4 million tonne stockpile to free up storage space and to lessen federal budget spending on servicing the stock, industry sources told Reuters in March. The sale of some of the stockpile requires permission from the government as current regulations do not allow the ministry to export grain from its own stocks.
The Agriculture Ministry is seeking permission to export 532,800 tonnes of grain built up from 2008-2013. Its intention to start its own exports have not been welcomed by exporters, whose margins have been already squeezed by several years of large crops in Russia, rising local competition and weak global wheat prices. According to the proposal, the ministry hopes that its draft would be approved in September. Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who is in charge of agriculture in the government, told Reuters in June that the government had not taken a formal decision on this proposal.
