MOSCOW: Russia, expected to become the world's top wheat exporter this season, has ramped up its grain export capacity to 45 million tonnes and will now focus on infrastructure in remote areas, Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev said on Wednesday. Russia has supported the development of its port capacity as the government aims to drive production to 150 million tonnes by 2030, up from a record crop of 117 million tonnes in 2016.
"In 2002, when we were only starting to export grain, the transhipment capacity in Russia was 5 million tonnes per year," Tkachev told the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.
"It is currently at 45 million tonnes, excluding the capacity which is currently being built or planned.
In fact, we solved the problem with export infrastructure (in ports).
We have a task to develop grain infrastructure in areas which are not near a port," he added.
If Russia boosts its grain crop to 150 million tonnes by 2030, it would have 50 million tonnes available for export compared with 35 million tonnes in the 2016/17 marketing year, which lasts until July 1, the government has said.
Speaking about the results of the first half of the 2016/17 season, Tkachev said Russia harvested 72 million tonnes of wheat, of which 28-30 million tonnes will be available for export in 2016/17. Milling class wheat totalled 83 percent of the 2016 wheat crop.
The share of third class wheat was more than 30 percent, Tkachev added.
Russia's 2016/17 record crop of around 117 million tonnes is expected to make it the world's largest wheat exporter for the first time in its history, relegating the European Union (EU) to second place.
Moscow has already exported 17.7 million tonnes of grain between July 1 and Dec. 7, flat year-on-year, including 13.9 million tonnes of wheat.
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