Subsidies for agriculture soft loans need to increase two to three-fold - Tkachev
MOSCOW. March 2 (Interfax) - In order to fully provide farmers with soft loans, subsidies for soft loans need to be increased by two-fold to three-fold, according to Russian Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev.
The current level of subsidies covers only 25% of farmers, he said at a government meeting on Thursday.
Tkachev said that subsidies toward soft short-term loans in 2017 were expected to total 15.4 billion rubles, up from 12 billion rubles in 2016. "Therefore we could subsidize loan agreements for a total sum of up to 200 billion rubles," he said. "I want to remind you that the market for short-term loans [based on requests from regions] is around 800 billion rubles. In other words, we are successfully providing only around 25% of farmers with soft loans. Of course, if we want to [provide soft loans] at 100%, then that sum needs to increase by two-fold or maybe even three-fold," he said.
Taking into account subsidies on investment loans, the total sum for 2017 is 21.3 billion rubles. "We took those 21 billion rubles from the budget's general internal reserves. In particular, we cut green box subsidies [per hectare support] in eight southern regions where margins on grain production are high," he said.
Tkachev highlighted the importance of investment loans to develop the country's food and processing sector. "We understand clearly that we need to reorganize our food industry, to get involved in advanced processing. We are still uncompetitive in a number of areas," he said. "In this sense, if sanctions are lifted, then our old enterprises will lose in the future."
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev responded to Tkachev's statement by saying he did not need to be afraid of sanctions being lifted since those that introduced sanctions against Russia were doing everything to make them of a more permanent character. Moreover, he said that this was "creating very good conditions for the future development of agriculture."
