February 26 2004, 11:43 RBC

Russia: grain interventions are underway

Commodity interventions in Russian grain market are currently underway, being operated by the National Commodity Exchange and Central Russian Universal Exchange, Russian media are reporting. The number of the accredited participants on the fourth day of the tenders (February 25) nearly quadrupled, involving large milling enterprises from all the 7 Federal Districts. 100 organisations from 6 geographic zones - North-West, Centre, Volga-1, Volga-2, South-1 and South-2 have been admitted to participate in trades. Starting from February 25 the traders are being held on 7 trading floors, located in regional exchanges in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhniy Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk.

The items, put for tender on the past trading days, were milling wheat Class 3 and 4 and milling rye group "A" in the amount of 16,100, 19,100 and 6,400 tonnes accordingly. The trades were held in the form of 28 mini-sessions, which resulted in 40 concluded transactions for the total amount of 36,455 tonnes of grains. Thus, on the third day of the trades milling enterprises from North-West, Central, Southern and Privolzhsky (Volga) Federal Districts bought some 36,500 tonnes of grain from the intervention fund through the single electronic trading system, RBK agency informs.

According to the forecast of agriculture ministry, the total number of participants over the whole period of intervention trades, which may last for 3 months up ahead, will range from 128 to 184 companies.