UPDATE: Min: Russia’s grain harvest at 110 mln tns in net weight in 2018

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MOSCOW, Dec 3 (PRIME) -- Russia’s grain harvest amounted to 110 million tonnes in net weight in 2018, Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev told President Vladimir Putin., Kremlin reported on its website on Monday.

“As of today, our grain crops have been threshed on 100% of the area. The main thing is that, despite somewhat unfavorable weather conditions, we’ve managed to collect a good harvest – 110 million tonnes in net weight, which is 11% more than the average annual volumes for the last five years,” Patrushev said.

Russia’s agricultural production may show growth of 1% in 2018, while agricultural exports will amount to around U.S. $26 billion, Patrushev also said.

The grain export potential amounts to 39 million tonnes this year, including 34 million tonnes of wheat, he added.

“The harvest that we received will allow us both to meet the domestic demand of the Russian Federation for food and send our planned volumes for exports,” he said.

Patrushev also said the Agriculture Ministry does not expect difficulties because of higher wholesale sugar prices, because sugar production will exceed domestic consumption.

“There is a certain deviation of wholesale prices for sugar. The wholesale price for sugar is higher than last year, but, on the whole, given that we will produce about 6 million tonnes of sugar, and our domestic consumption amounts to 5.8 million tonnes, we do not foresee any difficulties,” he said.

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