[Russian grain exports: condition and solution]

In Russia the level of food self-sufficiency in the recent years has been declining. The domestic production covers only two thirds of the domestic food demand. Being one of the permanent and main participants in the world food trade, the country is still dependent on large-scale imports. The exports and imports dynamics of the staple food products is given. The food imports are increasingly growing, as the food production growth is too slow compared to the increasing demand. According to the forecast by the Ministry of Economic Development for 2007-2009, the population incomes compared to 2005 may increase by 46%, and the agricultural produce – only by 12%. The export potential growth expectations are mainly associated with grain. There are given the home and foreign factors enhancing the development of the RF as one of the large grain exporters in the world, as well as some factors considerably hindering this. The latter include absence of the national grain policy, due to which the federal interests do not coincide with the regional interests in terms of following the uniform rules of grain trade. A need for the new national grain export policy is emphasized. It should be based on the following principles: 1) to use exports as a permanent incentive for the domestic grain production, its quality and assurance competitiveness; 2) to regard grain exports as a component of the national argifood policy; 3) to distribute the export quotes of some grains across the territory with reference to the specialization of the zones and regions of production; 4) to support economic interest of agricultural producers in the grain export through their equal participation in distributing the profits from grain exports; 5) to register obligatory all the export contracts at authorized exchanges to provide transparency of their quantity, volumes, prices of grains and processed grain products. The grain exports should be regarded as a complex problem whose solution requires not only adoption of the national strategy, but also establishment of a federal coordination body to implement it.