Vestnik Kavkaza
The forecast for the socio-economic development of Russia in 2015 made by the Ministry of Economic Development does not look too promising. According to the Minister of Economic Development, Alexei Ulyukayev, the sanctions regime is maintained and has preserved tight commodity markets – the price per barrel of oil is $50, gas - $222 per thousand cubic meters. There is a decline in exports, there is a high outflow of capital. All this leads to significant inflation, changes in exchange ratios, lower consumer demand and retail turnover. The source of economic growth in such a situation becomes net exports due to import substitution.
A few days ago, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed several decrees on the distribution of more than 35.7 billion rubles of subsidies to regional budgets to support agricultural producers, and from the beginning of February an export duty was introduced to stabilize the prices of grain and bread.
After the introduction of the export duties and the decision by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation not to raise the minimum purchase price for the intervention fund, the price of wheat in Russia began to decline. As the President of the Russian Grain Union (RGU), Arkady Zlochevskiy, noted, other industries, in contrast to grain, are not regulated so hard today, despite the fact that there are much more dynamic processes occurring there than on the grain market: "From February 1 we have duties imposed. From December 17, administrative restrictions on exports are working. Do you remember, on December 17 a telegram arrived from Russian Railways and wagons were stopped being loaded at the ports, and after that Rosselkhoznadzor stopped issuing certificates, Rosportnalzor stopped releasing ships from port areas. Rosavtodor took measures restricting the axle load on the pavement, and heavy-loaded ships stood up. "
According to Zlochevskiy this package of measures has led to the fact that January exports totaled 2.3 million tons - an absolute record for January exports in any historical period, of which 2.1 million tons is wheat. The thing is that the difficulties started in December. In January we had to concentrate on non-export December’s volume, and naturally concentrated on dragging it to January amounts deferred in anticipation of the introduction of fees. What has been contracted and had to leave in February, and even some March contracts, all have been shipped early and all went in January in anticipation of the introduction of fees… That means the market has adapted and learned to work with these restrictions. As the January practice has shown, despite all the limitations, exports are successful."
According to the President of Russian Grain Union, Russia will definitely remain an exporter of grain: "We have too much grain that is produced. Russia has virtually no chance of returning to the camp ... importers from exporting we do not get rid of ever."
However, Russia imports grain, and to get rid of dependence on imports in the cultivation of seeds, Zlochevskiy proposes attracting foreign genetic companies: "We need to do something successfully implemented in livestock. We are not frightened that all our livestock genetics are foreign and, at first, we imported breeding stock in furious quantities. Now we organize our genetic centers in Russia, which work on the same foreign genetics, but they are in our country. As soon as we put them in Russian soil, such as selection and genetic centers in seed, we have no problems. There will be no dependence on imports."
