Wednesday, 16 September 2009

Russia will introduce rice imports duty

Russia intends to introduce a seasonal duty on rice imports, according to the Minister of Agriculture of Russia Elena Skrynnik.

During the last session of the Russian government it was decided to implement seasonal duties on rice starting from  December, 1 2009 to 30 June 2010 amounting to 160 euros/tonne with a quota of 250 tons and 230 euros/ton in the absence of quotas.

In addition, Russia is planning to keep the subsidies for elite seed production of rice in the amount of 7000 rubles ($US225) in order to increase rice crop area.

According to the Minister, for the past five years, the gross yield of paddy rice in Russia increased by almost 2 times - up to 740 thousand tons, with a yield of 29-44 kg/ha. In the future, the volume of rice production in the country planned to increase by 100 thousand tons.

One of the main goals, according to the Minister, is import substitution. Every year, Russia consumes about 1.2 million tons of rice, while half of that amount is imported.

Elena Skrynnik informed that due to federal and regional subsidies, the profitability of rice production in the country increased by 6-7%. At present, the amount of subsidies is 5 thousand 400 rubles per ton. In 2008 more than 32 million of rubles were allocated from the federal budget for these purposes.

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