October 9, 2007

Russia approves wheat, barley export duty

The Russian cabinet of ministers decided to approve the imposition of seasonal export duty on wheat and barley at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov late Monday (Oct 8, 2007), the government press service said.

The exact figures and the duration of the new seasonal export duties for wheat and barley have yet to be announced officially, but officials said earlier the duty for wheat would be 10 percent and for barley 30 percent.

The barley export duty is prohibitive because the Russian barley harvest is too low this year to allow any exports.

The wheat export duty is not prohibitive and was designed to keep wheat exports in the current marketing year within 12 million-14 million tonnes.