Moscow has announced that tariffs on wheat exports will be cut to 3,952.9 rubles ($43.19) a tonne from February 21, 2024, according to the agriculture ministry.

The duty on barley will also drop to 190 rubles ($2.07) per tonne, and that on maize will almost double to 1,083.5 rubles ($11.82) per tonne.

The export duty rate for wheat is calculated at an indicative price of $248.4 per ton, for barley - $177.1 per ton, and for corn - $191.1 per ton.

At the same time, container export shipments of agricultural products from Russia have increased dramatically on an annual basis by the end of 2023, the head of the agro-industrial sector development department of the Russian shipping company Kristina Arshieva said.

“It can be said that towards the end of 2023, containerized agricultural exports turned out to be quite unexpected and high. The figure for 2023 is 2.5 times higher than the indicator of 2022. There are also positive forecasts for 2024," she added.

According to her, grain goods amount to 53% of the total Russian container exports of agricultural products. At the same time, oilseed crops amounted to 27%.

China has become the main beneficiary since the beginning of last year. “We started to see an ever-increasing interest from shippers in new locations at the end of the year - India, Pakistan and Egypt. Thus, we can say that a new tone has already been set in 2024 - we are already considering new markets specifically for containerized cargo transportation," concluded Arshieva.

Regarding the new harvest, under normal weather conditions, Russia can harvest about 135-145 million tons of grain. This was said by the president of the Russian Grain Union, Arkady Zlochevsky, at a special press conference last Thursday.

"For 2024, it is too early to give exact figures. Analysts are roughly in the range of 135 million to 145 million tons. This is under normal weather conditions, if there are no natural disasters. We hope there are no weather cataclysms that seriously will affect the indicators, and we are currently expecting such a harvest. Overall, it is a very good harvest, given that we have record transitional stocks," Zlochevsky said.

He also noted that options are currently being considered to increase grain exports to at least 70 million tons.