Russia may export approx. 35-40 mln tonnes of grain by 2020 - Medvedev
MANILA. Nov 18 (Interfax) - Russia intends to practically double grain exports by 2020.
"We can expand our export capacity to 35 million - 40 million tonnes of grain by 2020," Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told participants in the APEC business summit in Manila.
"Food security is an area important to many countries of the region, which is offering perfect cooperation options," the Russian prime minister said.
"The Asia Pacific region is a vast and growing territory, and one needs to understand that the topicality of food security issues will be growing there," he said.
Russia "is already producing quite a lot of grain and we are exporting quite a lot of it," he added.
"Yet we are expecting our export capacity to reach approximately 35-40 million tonnes by 2020, which will definitely contribute to the resolution of this problem," Medvedev said.
'This may be about not only [grain] exports but also full-scale cooperation in this area with partners - Asia Pacific market actors," he said.
It has been reported that Russia exported 29.89 million tonnes of grain, including 17.99 million tonnes of wheat in the period from January 1 to November 13, 2015. The Agriculture Ministry forecasted 30 million tonnes of grain exports in the agricultural year lasting from July 2015 till June 2016.