Official: Russia may lose grain markets of Algeria, Morocco

MOSCOW, Jul 18 (PRIME) -- Russia may lose the grain markets of Algeria and Morocco, where it only started exports last year, Arkady Zlochevsky, head of the Russian Grain Union, said in a news conference on Tuesday.

“The situation slightly changed last season, and we even launched exports to non-conventional markets for us, to Morocco and Algeria, but it was largely connected to the fact that France had a bad harvest that year, so it is unclear whether we will keep these markets this season,” he said.

The largest buyers of Russian wheat are Egypt and Turkey, but “Bangladesh has quite unexpectedly become one of our largest buyers,” he said.

The Agriculture Ministry sees Russia’s 2017 harvest at 100–105 million tonnes this year, down from a bumper crop of 120.7 million tonnes it harvested in 2016.

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