It is planned that starting from July it will not be 30%, but 20%. However, manufacturers and exporters believe that this is a lot.

Since spring, the export duty on soybeans is 30%, not less than 165 euros per ton.

Now the Ministry of Economic Development has developed a draft government decree, according to which from July 1 the duty will be reduced to 20% (at least 100 euros per ton).

Perhaps this is the very mechanism of the «floating duty» that the government was talking about back in the winter.

It is very important that the new rate will be valid until August 31, 2022.

That is, for at least a year, soybean breeders can work in a stable market and not expect any new shocks. And stability is exactly what manufacturers always expect from the state. And exactly what the agrarians have been lacking for the past six months.

One of the reasons for the reduction in the duty is that the bulk of soybeans in the Russian Federation is grown in the Far East.

It was previously exported to China. After the introduction of the 30% duty (in fact, prohibitive), it became unprofitable. But it is also unprofitable to transport soybeans to the European part of Russia, even if carriers reduce tariffs to the level of prime cost.

It is also unprofitable to take it to a processing plant to make, for example, oil from it: it is not very close to the nearest plant.

It turns out that the only cost-effective option is to stop growing soybeans altogether. Until all Far Eastern farmers have come to this obvious conclusion, the government is in a hurry to reduce the duty.

It is noteworthy that soybeans are imported in the European part of Russia, and exported in the Far East.

But although this is all one country, the fact remains: it is not profitable to carry crops across half the globe. And «transporting» it in the form of money from the sale of soybeans to China is much faster and cheaper than transporting it by rail.

How has soybean exports changed over the past season?

 

 

The 30% duty actually became the factor that divided Russian soybean exports into «before» and «after».

Before : from September to November (when the duty was not yet known), exports were at the level of 80 thousand tons per month. When it became known about the duty, in December it amounted to 146 thousand tons, in January — almost a million!

After : almost no exports since February. Most likely, the entire harvest of last year is simply already sold out.

What will happen with the harvest of the new year is still an intrigue.

Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Vladimir Ilyichev promised that the reduction in duties would help Far Eastern producers sell at least that part of the crop that is not in demand domestically.

But the vice-president of the Russian Grain Union, Alexander Korbut, believes that nothing will change: even at a rate of 20%, the duty will remain “prohibitive”.

And its main effect is to destroy the profitability of the soevodstvo in Russia and stop its development.