Putin: export of agricultural products from Russia increased by 2.5 times

President Vladimir Putin said that agricultural exports from Russia “grew exponentially” while imports declined. According to him, all Russian food standards and norms are “much higher than in the EU countries.” He raised this topic at a meeting with the workers of the Tulazheldormash plant.

As Mr. Putin stated, “agriculture is not just Soviet collective farms, it is a high-tech industry today.” “Our exports have grown many times, in my opinion, 2.5 times, I won’t (say.— “b”), so as not to confuse the numbers, but, in general, it is incomparable with what it was. Exports have grown many times, while imports, on the contrary, have decreased, and now I won’t even list the nomenclature,” he said.

As an example, he mentioned that Russia used to buy legs, “almost 1 million 400 thousand tons, something like that”, and now Russia “exports and fights for sales markets”, including pork. “Our agriculture entered the freed market with its products — in large volumes and higher quality, I want to emphasize this, actually higher quality than any Western product,” he says.

The head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Dmitry Patrushev, told Kommersant that the department insists that the volume of food production not be reduced, since “all conditions for this have been created.” He assured that “there is demand”, and “the surplus is sent for export.” At the same time, the minister admitted that there are interruptions in the supply of ingredients and materials needed by the industry, however, according to him, they are not critical.

Read more about the situation in the industry in interview Mr. Patrushev “Kommersant”.

Laura Keffer