October 5, 2017, Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Alexander Tkachev took part in the business breakfast 'Export of Agricultural Products: Key Success Factors', which took place as part of the business program of the 'Golden Autumn-2017' Russian agro-industrial exhibition. The main topics of discussion were the achievements, potential and development of Russian agribusiness exports. Over the past 10 years, the export of agricultural products has grown 3.5 times and reached $ 17.1 billion in 2016.
"The record harvest of grain of 2017 is a serious foundation for the export of Russian agribusiness, this season the export of grain can be increased up to 45 million tons, including wheat - more than 30 million tons. Since the beginning of the season, 12 million tons of grain have already been exported, which is a quarter more than last year's level," Alexander Tkachev said.The minister stressed that success is observed not only in the growth of volumes, but also in diversification in terms of geography and commodity structure.
So, last year China has become one with another largest export market of Russia - Turkey. Russian exports to China increased by 17% compared to 2015. Kazakhstan, South Korea and Egypt are among the top 5 countries that buy Russian products. The geography of food supplies from Russia is constantly expanding: grain is already exported to more than 100 countries, recently countries such as Mexico, Colombia and Laos began to purchase. Following the results of 2016, the key export items of the Russian agro-industrial complex were wheat (24.7% of the APK exports), sunflower oil (8.4%), frozen fish (11.5%), bread and confectionery (5.5%) , corn (5%).
In addition, the opportunity to compensate for the costs of rail transportation of all agricultural products supplied for export is being studied jointly with the Russian Export Center.
