World meat industry news

The main task of Russia in the current situation is to restrain the rise in prices in the country by the mechanism of floating duties. This was stated by the Minister of Economic Development of Russia Maxim Reshetnikov during the session "Food Security in the New Reality: Global Challenges and Opportunities" at the SPIEF, writes The DairyNews with reference to the press service of the department.

In his speech, he outlined Russia's export opportunities in the field of food, fertilizers, agricultural machinery and ways to overcome the logistical constraints that have arisen.

All over the world, the situation in the food markets is tense. According to the minister, at first, world prices rose due to crop failures in many countries and the consequences of the pandemic. “According to the FAO, the price index for basic commodities reached an all-time high in February. In May, it grew by 67% compared to 2019. Prices for energy carriers, fertilizers rose, logistical failures arose - this added a turn to the spiral of world price growth. The rise in prices may continue,” the minister said.

Due to the current damper, grain prices grew much more slowly than world prices. For example, the growth rate of domestic prices for wheat is two times lower than the world prices.

“Our food market is part of the common internal market of the EAEU. Now we are forming a single mechanism for protecting the common Eurasian market and we will synchronize all these measures. For this, among other things, we are launching a mechanism of indicative balances of supplies within the EAEU,” Maxim Reshetnikov said.

The Minister also stressed that Russia, a major player in the global food market, is deeply integrated into global trade processes and food chains. “We manage to find a balance. On the one hand, we maintain stability within the country and at the same time we are increasing exports, making a significant contribution to solving world problems, the minister noted. - Russia remains a reliable and responsible exporter. We continue to set ourselves the task of diversifying exports. Recently, for example, we have managed to achieve mutual opening of the markets of Vietnam, Kuwait, and Cuba.”

He also named three main tasks to be solved in order to reorient exports.

The first is the development of transport infrastructure: the removal of transport and logistics restrictions, from roads and checkpoints to transport and logistics centers, the digitalization of cargo movement processes.

The second is the development of an independent payment infrastructure, support for national currencies and an increase in their share in settlements between friendly countries.

The third is the creation of a Russian liquid exchange market for agricultural products.

“This will make it possible to form stock indicators of food trade. Our exchanges will be attended not only by our exporters, producers, consumers, but also by traders from the countries of our trading partners. This will give impetus to investments in our agro-industrial complex and at the same time make the infrastructure for food exports independent and serious,” the minister concluded.