Moldovan agriculture ministry not to intervene in forming prices for wheat, dictated by market

17:58 | 25.07.2016 Category: Economic

Chisinau, 25 July /MOLDPRES/ - The wheat price might be higher, if there were more possibilities for export, with the only way of delivery being the Reni and Giurgiulesti ports, and the wheat imports from Ukraine would not be “massive,” Agriculture and Food Industry Minister Eduard Grama said after a today’s meeting with the main companies purchasing cereals.

The minister noted that, in fact, the participants in the meeting had not tackled the issue of whether to increase or decrease the price, but considered the emerged situation. The ministry is not the one to dictate the prices, “but the market, and hence, it cannot intervene on market.”

“We have reached the conclusion that Moldova, as form, has logistic problems, and this influences the price, as our exit from the country is quite narrow and we have a very small quantity that we can export just now and quickly. We have two points: Reni and Giurgiulesti, which have a quite low export capacity,” Grama also said.

In late next August, the wheat price might increase by ten per cent; this depends on the insistence of agricultural producers and Competition Council, the head of the UniAgroProtect, Union, Alexandru Slusari, said after the meeting at the ministry.

“We anyway insist that the current price for wheat is low, as compared to other countries. The spending for one hectare of wheat for 2016 varies between 6,500 and 7,000 lei, and the present prices proposed do not cover the cost price. We propose that the state intervenes in the emerged situation. There is such a practice in all EU countries, in Ukraine and Russia, when the state, in the situation when the prices for certain types of farming goods are low, intervenes and buys a part of the wheat, maize at a price by 20-25 per cent higher than the current one. The farmer is backed in this way,” Slusari added.

Presently, the wheat price does not exceed 2.2 lei per one kilogram in the great majority of Moldova’s regions.

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor M. Jantovan)

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