The government can cancel import duties for buckwheat, potatoes and cabbage

The government subcommission on the customs tariff policy under the chairmanship of the First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov on Thursday approved the proposal to abolish the duties of buckwheat, cabbage and potatoes, the Finmarket agency reports.

It was decided to introduce zero duties for a period of 6 months, "taking into account the decrease in the production of the mentioned goods in Russia in connection with the drought," the government’s press service said. Now duties on them are 5-15%.

A week ago, the head of the Ministry of Economic Development of Elvira Nabiullina, announced the possible abolition of barrage duties for some types of products that became the culprits of the products that became the culprits of the products that became the culprits of the products.

“We are now considering a decrease in import duties on the types of products by which we have, by which we once made decisions to increase import duties in order to protect the domestic manufacturer,” the minister said on the sidelines of the Sochi -2010 International Investment Forum. "Russia is in world trade," and if there is an opportunity to bring the product that is not enough, then there is no point in freezing prices, she noted.

Among food products, buckwheat leads in price growth rates. In August, the prices for it jumped by 31%, from the beginning of September - even more than 17%. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has already opened cases against a number of buckwheat suppliers and continues to check the rest. As the department found out, the reason for the increase in the cost of buckwheat are "conspiracy in the wholesale link."

Every year, Russia produced approximately 600 thousand tons of buckwheat, this year, due to drought, the crop fell to 400 thousand tons, Viktor Zubkov said, speaking on Tuesday at a meeting on the problems of the agricultural sector. Russia's annual need for buckwheat is 700 thousand tons. According to the forecasts of the Institute of Conjuncture of the Agrarian Market (Icarus), 30-35 thousand tons will be brought from China. The Ministry of Economic Development was previously given an order to work out the issue of import of buckwheat, including with Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

Also, Russia will have to purchase at least 4 million tons of potatoes this year, the Ministry of Agriculture calculated. Negotiations are underway on deliveries with Poland, and Belarus has already begun to export potatoes in the Russian Federation. The country's needs for potatoes are about 29 million tons, including 12 million tons - for seeds and industrial processing and about 16 million tons for personal consumption. This year, the crop is estimated at only 22 million tons against 31 million tons in 2009.

According to Rosstat, in recent days, the increase in potatoes for potatoes in Russian cities has accelerated, while the rate of increase in prices for other food products has slowed down. In twenty days of September, according to official statistics, the potatoes went up by 7%, in August - by 0.7%, cabbage prices were still reduced.