Demand for fertilizers, agricultural exports through Russia's Baltic ports will grow - expert
ST. PETERSBURG. April 8 (Interfax) - Latin American and African countries, as well as India, Southeast Asia and China, are priority destinations for exports of mineral fertilizers and agricultural products through Russia's Baltic ports, and their importance will increase in the near future, General Director of the Agency for Economic Transformation and Development (AETD) Vladislav Onishchenko said.
"Ports in the northwest, Baltic ports, are primarily focused on handling what will always be valuable. That's food and to a large extent everything that leads to it - that is, fertilizers, oilseeds," Onishchenko said during a round table on the development of transport infrastructure in northwestern Russia.
Growing demand for these products is expected in these regions of the world, he said.
"This is linked to two basic factors: population growth, which dominates in the case of Africa, India, and to some extent Latin America, and income growth, which increases demand for the same food products," he said.
According to his forecast, this trend will be observed over the coming decades.
"Therefore, the demand for export routes through the northwest ports, Baltic ports, will only continue to grow," he said.
According to his presentation, fertilizer imports are a priority for Latin America and India; for African countries - agricultural products, and for Southeast Asia and China both fertilizers and agricultural products.
Earlier, Dmitry Yalov, the deputy head of the Leningrad region government and the chairman of the region's Economic Development and Investment Activities Committee, said that Russian ports in the Baltic basin (excluding the port of Kaliningrad) handled 259.2 million tonnes of cargo in 2024, maintaining the previous year's level. In the structure of cargo transported by rail, the largest shares were coal (44.5 million tonnes), petroleum products, oil and gas (37.7 million tonnes), and fertilizers (31.6 million tonnes). A total of 84% of all mineral fertilizers are handled via the Baltic, Yalov said.
