NOVOSIBIRSK, April 24 /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s grain export may reach 24.5 million tonnes in the 2013-2014 season, Director of the ProZerno analytical centre Vladimir Petrichenko said on Thursday.
Addressing the 8th Grain Roundtable in Novosibirsk, Petrichenko said this forecast exceeded the official one of 22 million tonnes for the current year.
According to the Federal Customs Service, the country exported 21.5 million tonnes as of mid-April.
In addition, Petrichenko forecasted a growth in corn exports from 1.93 million tonnes in 2013 to 4.15 million tonnes in 2014. This may be explained by the rich harvest of corn in 2013, when farmers gathered more than 11 million tonnes, he told Itar-Tass, adding that corn prices on the global market were rather high, which kept up the interest of Russia’s agricultural producers in the export of their products.
“High prices were an additional factor that stimulated corn exports, but the key factor, undoubtedly, is the heavy yield of corn,” Petrichenko said.
Major importers of Russian corn are Turkey, Korea, Iran, Germany, Israel, and the Netherlands.