Russian AgMin suggests exporting portion of grain through exchange
MOSCOW. Dec 16 (Interfax) - Russia's Agriculture Ministry plans to examine the possibility of introducing an exchange mechanism for exporting grain.
"We will propose to use exchange for [grain] exports too," the agriculture ministry's food market regulation department director Vladimir Volik said at a meeting of the Federal Antimonopoly Service's (FAS) expert council on agriculture on Thursday.
In order to interest exporters in such a mechanism, the Agriculture Ministry could offer to consider increasing discounts for transportation of export grain, Volik said. This issue is now being discussed with Russian Railways (RZD) .
This possibility will be discussed at a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich next week, Volik said.
He also said that the Agriculture Ministry is proposing to "carry out a portion of [grain market] intervention deals through exchange trading." In this case, participants in interventions would see "that this mechanism is more transparent and comprehensible than the current one," Volik said.
"This should not be expensive for them. We also think that in this case the logistical structure will start to develop in a more civilized way," Volik said.