Per-hectare agriculture subsidies complicate agricultural machine-building industry - Putin
MOSCOW. Dec 19 (Interfax) - The problem with domestic agricultural machine-building is partly associated with the introduction this year of per-hectare support of agricultural producers, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a Thursday press conference.
"This gives our agricultural producers the opportunity to make a choice in the acquisition of the best machinery at the best prices, it deepens competition," Putin said.
"There are minuses in this, and certain pluses, because this should propel modernization," the president said. "But we have to think about supporting these sectors. And [about] such instruments as we have, even in the context of joining the WTO," he said.
With Russia's accession to the WTO, there have been introduced per-hectare subsidies - the allocation of subsidies per hectare of farmland in production - in place of the way the country's agricultural complex had been supported, including the use of credits for the purchase of machinery envisioning the acquisition of domestically built equipment. This gave producers choice in the acquisition of machinery, and they frequently went for the product of foreign companies.
There was 25.2 billion rubles earmarked for per-hectare subsidies this year. For next year, 15 billion rubles is envisioned, but the Agriculture Ministry insists on an additional 10 billion rubles.
Some on the market have said multiple times that the agricultural machinery sector has to be supported, including the chairman of the board of directors at the industrial union Novoye Sodruzhestvo, Konstantin Babkin. One of Russia's biggest producers of agricultural machines, Rostselmash , is part of Novoye Sodruzhestvo.