February 1, 2011

 

Russian PM consents to sales from government stocks

 

 

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has signed an order permitting sales of up to 500,000 tonnes of food and feed grain from government supplies for each month during the first half of 2011, the government said on Monday (Jan 31).

 

The order published on government web site www.government.ru does not give a date for the start of tenders, aimed at stabilising grain prices after the country was hit by a severe drought. The trade was expected to start on February 1.

 

But the National Mercantile Exchange in charge of the tenders said on its web site www.namex. org on Monday that the date of the first tender has yet to be announced.

 

Last week First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said the government expected to sell 400,000 tonnes of food grain and 100,000 tonnes of feed grain per month at weekly tenders.

 

The government order allows the sale of grain only to flour millers, animal breeders and animal feed producers.

 

It sets the starting price for benchmark third-grade milling wheat and lower quality fourth-grade milling wheat purchased in 2005-2006 at RUB6,000 (US$201.63).

 

The starting price for third-grade wheat purchased in 2008-2009 was set at RUB6,600 (US$221.81) per tonne for the Urals and Siberian Federal Districts, at RUB6,050 (US$203.31) per tonne for most of the Central, Southern and Volga Federal Districts.

 

For these regions the starting price for fourth-grade wheat purchased in 2008-2009, was set at RUB6,000 (US$201.63) per tonne.

 

For Moscow and several regions of the Central Federal Districts, as well as Perm region in Northern Urals and for the exclave of Kaliningrad the price for third-grade wheat was set at RUB7,535 (US$ 253.25) per tonne.

 

The starting price for fourth-grade wheat for the Central and North-Western Federal Districts was set at RUB6,875 (US$231.04) per tonne.

 

The government said it will sell fifth-grade feed wheat, milling rye and feed barley at a starting price of RUB6,000 (US$201.63) per tonne regardless of the region. All prices include a 10% value added tax.

 

The government will distribute an additional 3.3 million tonnes of grain to drought-hit regions at a low fixed price from February.