United Arab Emirates plan to be a hub for supplies of the Russian grain to the Persian Gulf, ITAR TASS reports.
"Our offer is the ability to import grain at a fair price and in sufficient quantity, to store it in the UAE, as the logistics center, which we are developing," - the UAE Minister of Economy Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri said. This idea will be considered during negotiations with Aleksei Ulyukaev, the Economic Development Minister of Russia. Alongside this, al-Mansuri complained about disrupted supplies from Australia and Canada. Domestic needs of the UAE are estimated at 800 thousand tons. However, considering the whole region, the specialists think that it is necessary to maintain the constant stock of wheat in the country at 3 million tons.
The Russian Ministry of Agriculture forecast the Russian harvest at over 100 million tons in 2014. Meanwhile, export should be more than 25 million tons. The major consumers of the Russian grain are the countries of the Arab region with Egypt as the biggest buyer. Last year, this country purchased more than 3 million tons of grain. Second comes Saudi Arabia with 1 million 413 thousand tons. UAE buys 100 thousand tons of the Russian grain.
According to the Federal Customs service, in the first three months of this year, the exports of grain from Russia increased by 6.6 times to clock in at 2 million 810 thousand tons. In money terms, revenues increased 5.5 times to total more than 74 million dollars.
