MOSCOW, October 19. /TASS/. Russia has bought another batch of grain for its intervention fund. According to a statement of the National Mercantile Exchange, at its auction, 32,300 metric tons of grain were purchased by the state to the tune of 488.4 million rubles ($7.8 mln).

"At the National Mercantile Exchange, regular exchange auction was held as part of state procurement interventions in the grain market, as a result of which 32,265 metric tons of grain were sold for a total of 488.4 mln rubles," the report says.

In total, from August 1 the state purchased 941,500 metric tons of grain. Trading is held daily on working days.

Earlier, Russia’s Agriculture Ministry announced plans to purchase up to 3 million tonnes of grain to the state intervention fund. As part of state interventions, this year it is planned to purchase grain in the regions of Siberia, the Urals and Central Russia. In the future, in the event of a sharp rise in prices, grain will be sold to Russian flour milling and baking enterprises, and this will allow the market to "cool" and maintain a stable situation, the ministry noted.

The Russian authorities have carried out state interventions in the form of purchase and sale of grain since 2001 to regulate domestic prices. As part of purchasing interventions, the state, in order to support producers, purchases grain from farmers for an intervention fund, and as part of sale interventions, it sells it in order to prevent price increases.