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Russia Offers Land for Southeast Asian Farmers to Produce Food
12.08.2011 12:09 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) —
Russia is offering agricultural land to Southeast Asian nations to grow crops and help secure reliable food supplies, part of wider efforts to foster trade and investment ties in new markets.
«We suggested today to companies in the region to enter the Russian market given its large scale and to establish themselves to produce food for your own supply,» Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Slepnev said yesterday in an interview in Manado, Indonesia, where he is attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations trade ministers.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is turning to Asia to boost exports as his country’s economy struggles to grow at the pace it did before a 2009 recession. Russia began targeting grain buyers in Southeast Asia to regain its share of the world market after lifting an export ban in July, the Moscow-based Institute for Agricultural Market Studies said Aug. 1.
Asian nations are seeking stable food supplies after data compiled by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization showed global prices surged to a record this year. India’s food- price inflation reached a three-month high in the week to July 30, according to a report yesterday, after fewer monsoon rains curbed onion supplies and egg and meat costs rose.
Russia, the world’s largest energy exporter, is exploring possible investments with Southeast Asian nations in power generation, alternative energy and natural-resources exploration as it seeks to boost demand for the commodities it produces, Slepnev said.
«The center of world development is shifting to the Asian region,» he said. «Of course, the region will become an even bigger energy consumer.»
Russia’s economy, which grew at an average of 7 percent annually from 2000 to 2008, expanded 3.4 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter, missing economists’ forecasts, a report showed yesterday.
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