February 11, 2009
Russia to continue buying grain without increasing prices
The Russian government will keep buying grain to its intervention stocks despite slowing purchases, but will not raise support prices, First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said on Tuesday (Feb 10).
Zubkov said prices will not be raised anymore as the current prices are fair and the government does not have the finances to increase them again.
The government purchased 26,865 tonnes of grain on Tuesday, nearly twice as much as on Monday (Feb 9), but significantly less than at some previous auctions.
Rising domestic milling grain market prices had made government purchases less attractive, but the government was ready to proceed with interventions even if it could only buy feed grain, said a spokeswoman for Zubkov.
Russia has so far bought more than 6.8 million tonnes of grains, according to data supplied by the National Mercantile Exchange.
The government is also ready to purchase 19-20 million tonnes of grain, including corn.
Russia's official 2008 harvest estimate is 108.1 million tonnes, the highest volume since 1990.
