October 13 2006, 09:29

Russia builds up potato production; the country plans to become huge exporter of food staff to European Union

During the press conference Aleksey Gordeev, the Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation informed that potato production is likely to increase in 2006 in Russia. The Minister pointed out the importance of potato as a crop constituting a significant share in gross production of agricultural commodities in the country.

Mr. Gordeev said that vegetable production in Russia will approximately remain on the level of 2005. "At the same time, I would like to point out two regions where the production of vegetables, especially early varieties, has rapidly increased. They are the Republic of Dagestan and Astrakhan oblast. Here we also observe new technologies on the irrigated fields", the Minister said.

Aleksey Gordeev also mentioned that the turning point occurred in 2006 regarding the investments to the agricultural industry complex. In total 160 billions RUR were invested into agriculture in 2005; the growth of investments will be about 60% this year up to the sum of 250 billion RUR.

It is worth to point out that the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation decided to officially support the first international conference "Produce Business in Russia 2006". In such a manner the Ministry stressed a high importance of the dynamically growing produce business for the agricultural sector of the country economics. The organizers of the conference promise to attract the attention of all participants to a great quantity of new and still unused investment opportunities. It can become one more impulse for the development of the production and processing of vegetables, fruits and berries in Russian Federation.

Moreover, to the opinion of the Minister Gordeev, Russia can become a large supplier of food commodities to the EU countries: "…we should be ready that in five years Russia is able to become a quite large exporter of the food staff", the Minister said at the press-conference.

The conference starts working on Tuesday October 17th in Moscow. During this event the best experts of the produce business will share their experience in this sphere, and also present the first forecasts of the production and prices of vegetables and fruits for the coming months and the year 2007 in Russia. You can register for participation in the event online.