In Russia, there is not enough capacity to ensure the export of grain. This applies to both water and land transport.
Last year, Russia gathered a record harvest of grain, but there were big problems with its export abroad.
This is due, among other things, to the insufficient number of grain carriers. Many foreign companies suddenly refused to cooperate with Russian exporters due to sanctions.
At that moment, it became clear that the Russian Federation had a significant shortage of its own capacities.
What about water transport?
As noted by the Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Dmitry Patrushev, a very important problem that Russia needs to urgently solve is the lack of ships for transporting grain.
True, this can take a long time.
Currently, the first domestic bulk carrier is being designed, but its launching may not occur until 2025, and then only if there are no delays.
At the same time, as Patrushev noted, Russia generally has a port infrastructure.
For example, its capacity should be fully sufficient in the Black Sea region, through which, by the way, up to 90% of Russian grain is exported.
In other regions, things are less well.
Taking into account Russia’s strategic turn to the East, it is necessary to attend to the increase in port capacities in the Far East.
And also on the Caspian Sea, in the future this will help increase exports to the Middle East and Central Asia.
In general, the more directions will be provided with ports and transport, the greater will be the diversification of exports.
It will not hurt to develop river navigation, for example, for the export of grain from the Volga region. For this purpose, the Ministry of Transport is currently working to increase the passability of rivers.
What is the situation with railway transport?
Here, too, there is a shortage, in particular, there are not enough grain wagons.
But there is a more serious problem: the high monopolization of the market.
Tariffs of Russian Railways for the transportation of grain have increased by 1.5-2 times since last year due to the high load on infrastructure, the reason is the same record harvest.
The problem is planned to be solved both with the help of the Federal Antimonopoly Service and by providing preferential loans and leasing grain wagons so that other market players can also acquire them.
Russian Railways also plans to work on increasing throughput. It is planned that in the Far East it will be increased to 22 million tons of grain per year, in the Azov and Black Sea — up to 6 million tons.
All these measures in total should provide opportunities for the export of Russian grain in sufficient quantities, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
