Russia’s government sees no need for grain export restrictions in April and its raised grain export forecast for 2011-12 by 12.5 per cent, it said on its website on Friday, citing Russia’s first deputy prime minister, Viktor Zubkov.
"Given a revised harvest figure of 93.9 million tonnes… the forecast for grain exports in the 2011/12 crop year has been raised to 27 million tonnes," Zubkov, who is in charge of agriculture, was quoted as saying in the statement.
Zubkov earlier told Reuters that the government would determine that week how much grain can be exported during this crop year before it imposes the duty.
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Russia exported 19.6 million tonnes of grain since the start of this year, Zubkov added in a statement on Friday.
The volume of carry-over stocks, combined with intervention stocks, can fully meet domestic grain demand, the statement said, promising a stable price outlook.
Russia has helped drive up world wheat prices in the past week, first because of speculation about a duty that would limit exports and then because of concerns that hard frosts could damage Black Sea crops.
The government in June announced it would regulate exports via duties in the future as it prepared to lift a near-total ban on grain exports imposed in the wake of a catastrophic drought in the summer of 2010.
The Russian government was surprised by record levels of export after the ban was lifted. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in October warned traders against signing "excessive" export contracts and said Russia could export no more than 25 million tonnes in the year to July 1, 2012.
