Towards the Creation of Far East Grain Corridor

Serving as the president of APEC 2012, Russia proposed the creation of Far East Grain Corridor from now to 2014. Accordingly, food security is a premier content at the forum.

 

Earlier, Asia Pacific Agriculture Ministers (including China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand) met in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan (Russian Federation), whilst food security is becoming an increasingly strained issue. Economic and financial crisis in full swing increases the number of people suffering food shortage in the world to 1 billion people. Food has also become a particularly serious issue in the Asia - Pacific region where a quarter of the world’s hungry are living. At this meeting, all parties agreed that Russia could help ensure food security for all of Asia. Through cooperation with Russia, some countries in the Asia - Pacific region could find a solution to address food security problems.

 

Russia, one of the largest grain exporters in the world, expects to increase grain export from 25 million tonnes to 40 million tonnes by 2020. Meanwhile, according to experts, the demand for cereal grain in the Asia - Pacific region will also increase in the coming years. During its APEC presidency, Russia will discuss provisions regulating food markets, looking for measures to reduce speculation of agricultural products, developing new agricultural technologies and providing humanitarian assistance for famine countries.

 

Currently, Russian Agriculture Minister is forming a plan for developing infrastructure and ensuring food logistics for agricultural markets in the context of rising grain crop output in recent years, which makes grain processing facilities at Russian export ports run beyond capacity. Hence, this country needs to invest in building new facilities for handling grain for better export results. This allows Moscow to increase grain processing volume by 40 percent and attract foreign investors.