MOSCOW: Russia, one of the world's top wheat exporters, plans to impose a duty on grain exports, officials said on Monday, a move that follows informal curbs through quality controls last week as the government races to guarantee its domestic needs.
Russia has a big grain crop this year but rouble volatility and high global prices caused exports to spike and the country now needs to hang onto its stocks, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told a meeting with officials, Russian agencies said.
"(We will) prepare a proposal for a decision on export duty, it will be done within 24 hours," Interfax news agency reported, citing Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich as telling the same meeting.
Medvedev told Dvorkovich to submit the proposal for his signature.
Officials are discussing a prohibitive duty and may impose it earlier than exporters are able to fulfil already-signed contracts, an industry source familiar with the discussions told Reuters.
Last week, Russia cut railway loadings of grain for export, industry sources said. Railway loading was cut from Dec. 17 for an indefinite period. State-controlled Russian Railways, which has a monopoly on rail shipment, declined to comment.
That was in addition to the country's tougher rules for quality checks, imposed by state food safety watchdog earlier in the week to stop some grain leaving the country.
Russia can export 28 million tonnes of grain without damaging domestic needs, of which 21 million tonnes had already been exported since the start of the 2014/2015 marketing year on July 1, Dvorkovich told the meeting.
Dvorkovich's spokeswoman declined to comment further.
Russia used a protective duty on wheat exports in 2008.
Comments
Comments are closed.