“As you know, they imposed quite serious restrictions on us, and we are only open to the supply of this group of goods from seven regions of the Russian Federation, and not the most “grain” ones. This is the Far East, this is Siberia, and, accordingly, this is not something I think that this year a protocol and an agreement will be signed, the wording has already been agreed with them directly, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, and this market will be opened for all regions of the Russian Federation that are interested in exporting the grain group to China," the official said.
"China is quite an interesting market, the capacity is very decent: about 11 million tons of corn, about 8-9 million tons of grain and something incredible - 85 million tons of soybeans," he said.
At the end of 2020, China entered the top ten largest importers of Russian grain, having purchased 1.9 million tons. For 10 months of 2021, this figure amounted to 1.8 million tons.
The protocol on phytosanitary requirements for wheat exported from Russia to China was signed on November 1, 2017 in Beijing. He launched the supply of Russian grain to China. In 2019, Russia and China signed new agreements that expand the supply of Russian products to the Chinese market. In particular, the number of regions that have the right to export wheat to the Chinese market has increased to seven (these are the Krasnoyarsk and Altai Territories, Omsk, Amur, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk and Kurgan Regions). The principle of regionalization was also abolished when purchasing Russian soybeans.
Speaking at the forum on Friday, Karmazin also said that Rosselkhoznadzor is negotiating to ease phytosanitary requirements for Russian grain for deliveries to Indonesia and Vietnam.
India, he said, is waiting for the delivery of a trial batch of lentils from Russia. “They gave us half a year for this time, they are ready to accept, fully explore and open this market. The capacity is quite large,” said the deputy head of the Rosselkhoznadzor.