On September 26, General Director of ITI Vladimir Salamatov moderated the session titled "Export in Agricultural Sector" at the II Interregional Export Forum in Perm.
Over the past ten years, overall growth in global exports averaged 1.8% annually. By contrast, the annual growth rate of exports in the agricultural sector was as high as 3%, exceeding the global average. The share of agro-industry in global exports was 8.2% in 2018. In Russia, the corresponding figure is lower than the global average, standing at 5.4%.
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Russia's exports in the agricultural sector have increased by 21% over the past year, mainly due to a growth in the “Grain and products of the milling industry” category, the primary commodity group in exports. Accordingly, Russia's share in global agro-industry exports has increased from 1.3% to 1.6%.
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For exporters, it's vitally important to know the constraining factors in trade. The Navigator Through Market Barriers and Requirements, an interactive analytical system produced by the Russian Export Center, makes it possible to single out several countries as the most promising from the point of view of enhancing Russia's trade with them. These are:
- India (average tariff value is 13.9%),
- Israel (5.41%),
- Egypt (18.9%),
- China (7%),
- Brazil (11%).
The Navigator also enables an exporter to see how non-tariff barriers of various types are distributed across commodity groups and compare tariffs in different industries. Without the commodity filter, it can be seen that sanitary and phytosanitary measures (the kind of barriers applied to agricultural produce) make up the second largest group of non-tariff barriers.
As for tariff barriers, the situation is quite similar – the average tariff applied in the agro-industry is 16.27% compared to a 9% average for all kinds of products. Agricultural produce is the commodity group where the number of restrictions in trade (both tariff and non-tariff barriers) is traditionally the highest.
Meanwhile, enhancing exports in the agricultural sector is one of the main ways to support further growth of agriculture. To make a breakthrough and expand Russia's export capacity, it's necessary to strengthen the collaboration between federal and regional authorities, transnational companies, and local Russian producers which currently make up a great share of suppliers.