Rusgrain Union proposes foreign state cos buy Russian grain on Russian exchanges
MOSCOW. Dec 2 (Interfax) - The Union of Grain Exporters (Rusgrain Union) has proposed a mechanism that would allow foreign state companies to buy grain on Russian exchanges as a part of a package of mechanisms to promote Russian agricultural exports for rubles through exchange trading, the deputy CEO of United Grain Company, Ksenia Bolomatova said.
Russia has a very competitive market, with many exporters, and foreign state companies could ask an exchange to organize competitive purchases for them, she said at the Agrotrends Russia 2022-2023 conference in Moscow on Thursday.
"In principle, this is a very market-based affair. The exchange organizes the purchase, exporters compete among themselves, and an economically justified, maximally transparent price is set. And there's no obscure international or transnational trader, everything's clean, transparent," Bolomatova said.
Rusgrain Union CEO Eduard Zernin told Interfax that switching grain exports to rubles would help reduce risks associated with sanctions.
"By promoting the practice of buying for rubles among our key buyers from friendly countries, we have a good chance of getting rid of two systemic problems at once - remove western intermediaries from the transaction chain and move export activities to the Russian legal field," Zernin said.
This is a fundamental shift in international grain trading, the creation of a new contour, he said. "I won't say that we were striving to proactively get out of the existing contour of the world market, but we are being actively pushed toward this. The degree of discrimination against Russian exporters is at a level where it is impossible to ignore the risks. They did not manage to cancel us, but attempts to hinder our business, put the skids under us to this day," Zernin said.
In this situation, the most effective means of protection is to create one's own market contour, with one's own clearing mechanism, trading rules and dispute resolution forum, he said.
Bolomatova forecast that Russia might export 53 million-54 million tonnes of grain this agricultural year (July 2022-June 2023), but it could potentially export more than 60 million tonnes if there were no restrictions.
It was reported earlier that the Russian government's finance and economics team is working on ways to move exports of agricultural products to exchanges with payment in rubles.