PRESS: China to import bagged grain from few Russian regions

MOSCOW, Dec 11 (PRIME) -- China has agreed to import only bagged grain from a few Russian regions, business daily Kommersant reported Friday quoting a bilateral Moscow–Beijing protocol coordinated earlier this week.

The document will be signed until the end of December. According to the protocol, China will buy wheat only from the Altai, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk and Omsk regions; soy, rice and corn only from the Khabarovsk, Primorsky, Zabaikalsky, Amur regions and Jewish Autonomous District; and rapeseed only from the Siberian and Far East federal districts.

China chose only the regions which it had inspected, and expansion of geography is not scheduled soon, a representative for the federal phytosanitary watchdog told Kommersant. The grain that will be exported to China should be bagged or transported in special vehicles to guard from spilling or ingress of moisture, the representative added.

Arkady Zlochevsky, head of the Russian Grain Union, told the business daily that Russia exported about 150,000 tonnes of grain to China in the 2014–2015 agricultural year, and will raise sales to 300,000 tonnes in the 2015–2016 agricultural year even without the agreement, whose conditions are discriminating.

“The whole world transports grain in bulk. Russia is offered to transport it in bags, which makes supplies unprofitable. China has not set such conditions to any other exporter,” he told Kommersant.

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