i have one now but if you are willing to get more news right now on the international investment forum which is well under a way in the russian city of sochi you can visit our website r.t. dot com slash business.

sergeant of the israeli defense forces. during his service scorched a street fight. a colonel in the chilean armed forces participated in keeping down a military revolt. a sergeant in the us army. tried to become an american by getting pardon the. franks and reasons differ but one thing brings them together once they disobey a. wealthy british style holds. the title of.

scandal find out what's really happening to the global economy. financial headlines to name two kinds of reports.

here in the russian capital this is our headlines afghanistan is hit by deadly blasts on parliamentary election day a struggle to secure the country many voters decide to stay away from the polling station softer more threats from the taliban and. one of russia's most wanted terrorist suspects arrested then released in warsaw is awaiting of course decision on his extradition. request to. be sent to russia to face a number of charges. and world war two relics in the baltic sea still pose threats with around one hundred fifty thousand munitions are spread all over the sea floor. program spotlight is up next russia cup grain exports after a prolonged heatwave destroyed much of the harvest all going off talks to. head of

the russian grain union about the worldwide implications of the cup. every month we give you the future we help you understand. and want to bring the best in science and technology from across russia and around the world join us to date on our jeep in the united kingdom. house bill and. the. country house. the. tiles the rim brands the crimean to feel. the oil the rubens hotel.

and welcome to spotlight. on. today my guest is out of. the unusually dry and hot summer has destroyed much of this year's crop and rush the state had to impose restrictions. to keep prices down but what does it mean for the rest of the world will be asking the president how the russian. russia is one of the world's biggest grain exporters but drought has badly affected the harvest in order to maintain supplies of whom russia has imposed a ban on exports that's boosted grain process to a two year high and prime minister says the ban may remain in place until the next year. two years without crushing the market. in two thousand

and eight. country. this is not just the thank you for joining us welcome to our program hello. my first question is about something that many people including our audience world was are concerned about how significantly has the russian embargo changed the world grain prices and can it change them and how significant of a price. if a does it. change anything anymore because the change happened already there is this is good news they put a ban has already been imposed therefore in the green on the world market has already made it seem practical from now on things can only improve if by any chance exporting a certain amount of grain this could have a positive impact on only them and the world prices would drop slightly. however

nobody is expecting russian producers to export significant amounts of grain in the season and we aren't expecting the ban to be lifted on january first as this would result in automatically equaling off domestic and world prices your word is the purpose of the ban was to prevent the address to growth of the local choices at present the gap between domestic and a world crisis is too big to leave the ben she wanted tiny crack would equal the prices the international community fears the repetition of the food crisis of two thousand and seven which sparked riots and countries from bangladesh to mexico spotlight. more. the worst drought in at least half a century has a right to feel of a green should teach in russia the government has been there. for the next twelve

months. to protect consumers inside the country so chocked through international markets. bread prices to it to here high it's a reminder of the situation in two thousand and seven and two thousand and eight when hutu did use to writing around the world back then iran thirty countries imposed restrictions on the explant of a good cultural products prices soared and public discontent is believed to have triggered the collapse of governments in haiti and madagascar this year mozambique has become the first country to suffer a food shortage is the government's decision to raise bread prices by thirty percent to rights you know actually seventy people died and around three hundred were wounded during the violence the price rises were revoked india has had their way to export ban for the last three years it's reported to have good lifestyle and some great stories. disturb the volatility on the global grain market the united

nations food and agriculture organization is holding an extraordinary meeting on the crisis next week. do you think russia's in bargo could trigger a food crisis and underdeveloped countries ones that depend on grain imports do you think the situation in those countries could get out of control again and would they blame russia for it anymore but i know this won't happen the world has enough resources to compensate for russia's absence on the world market. today are world's weak stock east march larger now than three years ago when the world indeed faced area problem of food supply. at that time prices including international ones worth one point five times higher than today he would. governments

and pose the grain export embargo in order to protect consumers from a drug. prize growth within the country how did this decision affect green producers they must have lost money because that mean they would have benefited from higher prices right and yes of course you're right producers in our southern regions that are rather good harvest in spite of extremely negative weather conditions and they didn't benefit from the embargo. price growth stopped and even reverse. prices have been dropping since the implementation of the ban not by much though but they're still dropping certainly this fact makes grain production less attractive to investors and has a negative effect on their revenues could you give us an idea of how much they lost the most calculation in exact amount possible it depends on quite

a number of factors such as their investments they're not cost their harvests to colleges regions and so forth. and therefore we cannot sum up their taunts a loss or however we can tell how much is lost through prices for instance q the southern federal district of new schools to see ports and therefore insulin just you could expand his or lol so by the time the export ban was imposed their price was almost six thousand roubles for one tonne of brain to date has trailed by almost one and a half thousand rubles and that's how much they lose interest on this is quite a lot it's a bit of it is that as for the world market the price is grown by at least fifty dollars you mentioned seaports ensouled and russia any grain producers dependency imports they exported their grain through those ports but now. they're

majestic sixpences they're. being replaced by costly ones such as those crane producers now have to transport their grain to the northern and eastern regions of russia. is there an efficient infrastructure for that. yes the reason for structural for moving such amounts regions have about nineteen million tons of surplus grain and thirteen million tons in southern russia and six million in siberia. on the other hand the need for grain in the boulder region and central russia is about sixteen million tons and add a couple of millions for places that traditionally don't produce their own grain like sink petersburg and moscow so in tonsil we need to transport about eighteen million tonnes so that's not

a problem for our infrastructure in the city the only problem is with the cost of transport. for instance the region consumers such as mills and for their factories used to pay for and a half thousand herbals a tonne. which is the prize in southern ports that is six thousand rubles a tonne minus the cost of transportation bill which is about a thousand and a half rubles a tonne. but now after the ban they have to pay six thousand euro rubles plus in another fifteen hundred two roubles a tonne for transporting grain from the south to the of all the region so that's seventy five hundred roubles so they prize by three thousand rubles overnight. of course that's quite

a long and so now consumers who refused buying at such high prices were as producers in southern. cutting prices they used to export their grain at six thousand and john another asked to sell it at three thousand so that you can buy it at the old price of four and a half thousand. so the situation is rather unusual and complicated but we hope that stamps will be taken soon the president has ordered to cut the logistics expanses you know in order to reduce the cost of transporting grain consumers and producers. in response to. the world market will have to adjust and regroup to reconfigure itself for example you mentioned grain and other producers. don't you think that by the time the ban is lifted our own producers will lose their current position in international

markets. and that. depends on how competitive prices are. actually the difficulties we are going to face are of a different nature i'm not really ward that we would lose our positions on the world market because we only them less than ten years ago and we want them through our load competitive prices because our projection cost is low but as long as all farmers agree to a low wages we will have better prices than our rivals in europe or america the problem is that russia will now be regarded as an unreliable country we made the decision to ban sports so unexpectedly that the world no longer trusts us and this fact will impact prices for consumers would rather pay five dollars.

then paying less to us but not having confidence. that will deliver it and it will take us some time to restore our reputation during which will be losing money. it's going to be saying that because of the ban we fail to deliver even the grain that has already been paid for under existing contracts yes among other things really ever know the russian exporters too can bend the force make sure provision to avoid their losses would they had contracts with egypt and other countries spot stuff so knowing their old buying grain from other countries and delivering it to customers at contractual prices to fulfill their obligations up here. because they don't want to risk losing their major customers with. the

open but he says out of ideas let us keep president of the russian drain the spotlight will be back shortly after break we'll continue this interview so stay with us to end up. lying. which brightened. from feinstein. starts on t.v. dot com. first

. welcome back to the spotlight i'm just a reminder that my guest in the studio today. president of the russian grain union we're talking about the grain. imposed by the russian government. to to protect the prices on the internal part market. this is. the battle here our partners and what's most important our reputation on the world markets the government imposed as was a forced majority and we not only avoid signing any new contracts but we also fail to honor even those that were paid for do you think it was the only possible

solution couldn't it have been done differently. i believe it could have been handled in a different way i think it was done in too much for us i think nothing terrible would have happened if the embargo date had been moved forward from august fifteenth click with. september first say. would have changed it would have been soft on our partners. and both the world and our all market we were going to push forward with that we should have enabled the existing commitments to be put. in only authentic this step then there would be no problem if possibly there was some secret plan behind the suddenness with for example not to let someone make extra cash or some thank you know the stock exchanges for them any advance information as a way to make more money and actually we helped them make money by making this decision in such a haste their world markets reacted instantly and the prices surged big could have

been going up smoothly had a we issued a warning would have allowed some time for preparations in the increase would have been so we're just. yes of course. we did it expected for everyone in the world. by fifty dollars this gap. to find out what do people. think about the situation. there to try to find out if the right thing by building a. market which. i think it's the right. because we should have a. i don't think we should.

think it is the right thing to do. think it's right because of the situation with the drive over the country there is a shortage of grain. think it's great because. green left. you mean domestic crisis and certainly not into domestic process will now depend on the domestic balance that is whether or not we have in our resources to provide for

both of the current season and the next one is currently the prices are not falling because at the start of season resources are considerable before january grain deficient regions will have used up their resources i mean the vulgar regions in central russia will have consumed old their grain and will have to import in the meantime south produced grain is not being sold domestically because some of the farmers are dissatisfied with the current prices are expecting kayaks and thus the price formation will have to be based on the purchasing prices in the south plus costs that will have to be. if in keeping with the presidential order the government now decides to impose some favorable tariffs for grain haulage that this will certainly can seem price growth if not the prices will grow in any event

starting from the new year motion is it necessary at all to change russia's pricing system and does enhance competition on the grain markets. frankly speaking i do have a point of view of my own that i've rather often offer to the public in my view it's counterproductive to freeze the prices it's populism and it later has a rather grave on the general situation and the economy as a whole. it's much more productive to fight poverty in the pockets of the people. and for these purposes the world has developed efficient tools that work well. for example the u.s. department of agriculture spends still a lion's share of its budget on food stamps that is food aid cysteine still poor. and this is an alternative to cash. in moscow we have the

so-called social. good it also implies some prize discounts and so on. so we might develop and introduce a social food card and that would work much better than price containment by containing prices we also subsidize the rich pockets. we must understand that and the rich pockets aren't much bigger consumers than the poor ones it's automatic they have more opportunities through price containment we spend more money to support the rich pocket than the poor pockets in this country to kirk as soon as the vandalism posed the need it came up. towards saying that grain were coming to the domestic market saying the guest traders were expecting demand to be lifted and then wish to sell at prices lower than the world price i doze reports

through judging by what you said earlier the ground did work and everyone is toeing the line with what they perceive a different thing. that's exactly what i'm. saying southern regions are not selling their grain it isn't coming to the domestic market but it's not because they're waiting for the world prices they're not happy with the current domestic prize which has dropped after the ban if prices go back to an acceptable level i mean there is no need to bring them up to the world levels this makes no sense but everybody understands what social responsibilities even a form is in southern reaches what they want is a fair price which is about six thousand rubles a tonne that's the average price for the past few years half years ago the price was nine thousand rubles a tonne clomid it in for one and a half years it stayed at the level of slightly more than three thousand roubles a tonne not long ago it went back to six thousand and began falling again as soon

as it hits the six thousand mark all the sales will resume the market will move and things will go back to normal here is what prime minister putin had to say in order to calm down the situation on the domestic grain moch. in order not to create some necessary anxiety to ensure a stable and predictable business environment full market participants i should note that we can consider the abolition of the grain export ban only off to the next crops have been harvested and there is clarity on the grain balance zigzagging should not be allowed to. mrs large have skied this situation that we currently have in our hands to what extent can be beneficial for the speculators the people who don't produce

anything or. as the british call them the middlemen. speculators need the market to move on or was there's nothing they can do you know we could more. it is a bad place for speculators at this point in the market is that a standstill the problem hasn't been created by the speculators they have nothing to do with it they want the market to move on the contrary so what's going on with both wheat was everyone so excited. buckwheat is a separate story which is that we remember all too well the shortage of black wheat in the soviet period in as soon as we hear rumors about crop failure is sort of shortage a source supply of problems people rush to buy what can be stored for long she's the bulk of it is among the foods that are swept off the shelves in the first place like pastor and flower but pastor and flower were stored in excess at the moment when the rumors began spreading wild mockery train service were not very large but

i can say they were small either and because we had the fortune ninety thousand tonnes of buckwheat in storage as a forest first and last year's august first reserves in mountain to fifty seven thousand chance the difference isn't very large but because buckwheat is normally purchased in small amounts we don't consume much bucket michelle for reserves or small to. sell slowly in retail chains and shops but it's. my last question it's about a writing of sorts that the specialist so warning about it's that we've been draining exports in the world grain prices went up the need price is dependent again price yes russia depends on the need to imports this and so need prices grow because of our own actions no i don't think so we have a special program to increase domestic production of meat as part of the national

project to develop the agricultural industries so by now we can almost cover a need for poultry and we are making good progress with pork beef he is the only meat where we still have some problem. but beef doesn't depend on green coast feed on grass right so here we have a different kind of problem the problem is that there is no shortage of green but there is a shortage. so we expected a ten percent shortage. and forder this year. and this will have to be replaced by you green you know of course grain is you know is more expansive. to it thank you thank you thank you very much for being with us and just to remind that my guest in the studio today was. the president of the russian brain.