Trade intervention on grain market in European Russia to begin next week
GORKY. Feb 5 (Interfax) - Trade interventions on the Russian grain market will begin in the European part of the country next week, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a Tuesday meeting dedicated to issues involved in preparations for the spring fieldwork and the grain market situation in Gorky.
"I have made a decision on the sale of Intervention Fund grain on other floors - in the European part of the country," the prime minister said. Trading in class-5 wheat, feed barley and food-grade rye will begin next week, he said.
Those allowed to participate in the trades will be milling and animal feed enterprises, "as well as livestock enterprises, so that they can acquire class-4 and -5 wheat and feed barley," Medvedev said.
Trade interventions are currently being conducted in the Siberian, Urals and Far Eastern Federal Districts, with the participation of milling and animal feed businesses.
As of January 30, over 1.5 million tonnes of grain had been sold from the Intervention Fund for 13 billion rubles, Medvedev said.
Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov, who was at the meeting, backed the proposal to expand trade interventions on the grain market. He said that grain stored in the European part of Russia would be sold mainly in neighboring regions.
Fyodorov said the proposal to begin Fund sales with rye, fodder barley, and class-5 wheat would make it possible to increase demand in the field of animal husbandry for feed grain by almost 600,000 tonnes.
The Agriculture Ministry favors increasing the limits on the purchase of Fund grain by milling and feed enterprises "from at three-month to a four-month level of grain processing," Fyodorov said. "This is very pressing, as a result the consumers of grain will be able to find themselves in a less pressured regime," he said.
