Saudi Arabia proposes Russia to create a joint enterprise on grain selling. It was announced by Saudi Arabia government representative Salih Al-Shoaibi that is on visit to Russia, Interfax informs.
According to Salih Al- Shoaibi, it was King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who put forward an initiative of creating a joint enterprise. Within the framework of this joint company it would be possible to build storage facilities for Russian grain. Thus, Russia would be able to employ the territories of Saudi Arabia as a base for selling its grains to other countries of the Middle East.
Russia is one of the major trading partners of Saudi Arabia on barley. According to Interfax, referring to ProZerno company data, for 2009-2010 Russia delivered to the kingdom 1.8 mln. tons of barley. In total 7.2 mln. tons of barley have been imported to Saudi Arabia. Almost no other grains are exported from Russia to Saudi Arabia.
Russia has been ardently trying to return to the global grain markets since July 2011, when embargo on grain export was cancelled. It was imposed in 2010 due to poor harvest in the country. In compliance with the data, during the first 13 days of July 770 tons of grain were exported; there are requests for exports of 6.5 mln. tons of grain at customs authorities. All in all, for 2011 Russia is seen to sell abroad 15 mln. tons.
On July 15, Vice Premier Viktor Zubkov said that Russia should pay more attention to advertisement of its products abroad to make its exports grow. He also added that Russian grain is in good demand anyway.