Latvia increased grain imports from Russia 60% in 2023

RIGA. Feb 14 (Interfax/BNS) - Latvia imported 423,732 tonnes of grain products from Russia in 2023, 60% more than the 265,056 tonnes it imported in 2022, Latvia's State Revenue Service (SRS) told the BNS agency.

The value of the grain imported from Russia totaled 89.008 million euros, an 11.7% increase YoY.

Last year, 294,844 tonnes of corn (a 100% increase), 53,243 tonnes of rye (a 60% increase), and 74,640 tonnes of wheat and wheat and rye mixture (a 10.2% decrease) were imported from Russia, as were 986 tonnes of triticale (a 47.4% decrease) and 20 tonnes of barley (not imported in 2022).

Last year, 2.137 million tonnes of grain were transported from Russia through Latvia, which is 2.2 times more than the 981.517 tonnes transported in 2022, the State Revenue Service said. This includes 1.68 million tonnes of wheat and wheat and rye mixture (a 2.2-fold increase), 289,168 tonnes of corn (a 90% increase), 109,609 tonnes of barley (a 731-fold increase over 150 tonnes in 2022), 51,067 tonnes of rye (a 27.2% increase), 4,330 tonnes of triticale (a 73% decrease), 2,136 tonnes of oats (a tenfold increase), 878 tonnes of rice (a 29.9% decrease) and 157 tonnes of grain sorghum (a 2% increase).

Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina said at the end of January that Latvia had received support from Lithuania and Estonia for its initiative to ban Russian grain imports, but for the measure to be effective, decisions are necessary at the European Union level.

She said that unilateral restrictions would not achieve their goal, and it would be a "ban on paper," which would not really work, since the grain would reach the European Union and Latvia, in particular, through other routes. Therefore, Latvia is the first country to raise this issue at the EU level and intends to continue to explain the need for an import ban, the PM said.

Latvia is the second largest importer of Russian agricultural and food products into the EU after Spain, data from its Agriculture Ministry show.

The SRS previously estimated the total potential losses for Latvian port and railway transport from a ban on the import and transit of Russian grain at 100 million euros.