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Russia not to purchase sugar this year – Zubkov

“We won’t purchase sugar this year, most likely. We’ll export it”

MOSCOW, October 21 (Itar-Tass) —— Russia won’t purchase sugar this year, First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said on Friday during an electronic meeting on the issue of transportation of grain and vegetables.

“This is very good that we gathered a harvest of 40 million tonnes (of sugar-beet), or may be more,” Zubkov said. “We won’t purchase sugar this year, most likely. We’ll export it.”

Zubkov didn’t specify what kind of sugar he meant - - raw sugar or white sugar.

As a source in the secretariat of Zhubkov said, this year planned indices on raw sugar - - five million tonnes, plus another over two million tonnes of old reserves. As a whole, our internal need of raw sugar amounts to 5.6 million tonnes.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture Alexander Solovyev, for his part, said about the plans on white sugar. “We plan to export 200,000 tonnes, or maybe, with God’s blessing, up to 400,000 tonnes,” Solovyev said at the meeting.