Russia's Agriculture Ministry supports limiting flower imports by means of "rather serious" duties - Minister

MOSCOW. March 20 (Interfax) - Russia's Agriculture Ministry of Agriculture is ready to support a proposal to increase import duties on flowers.

"We will support you. I would handle the import of flowers by levying some rather serious import duties. If they want to import them, let them pay the treasury. But at the same time, we must understand that it is important not to leave the girls without flowers," Minister of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev said at a meeting of the State Duma's Committee for Agrarian Issues on Wednesday.

That was his response to a proposal from one of the deputies to create a working group to prepare measures in support of domestic flower growers, partly by limiting imports, some of which come from unfriendly countries with a current duty of only 3-5%. As a result, the share of imported flowers on the market is 82%.

"I definitely support you; we did introduce support measures for flower products at one time. We have preferential loans, and a number of other measures. Let us think about import duties. I agree with you that it is possible to create a working group, so let's do this," Patrushev said.

The goal at the first stage should be to increase the share of domestic products in the flower market to 50%, the deputies said.