Russian officials got confused with subsidies

Russian agricultural sector is in wait for loan collapse: federal and regional budgets’ debt to farmers reached almost 35 bln rubles – these are investment loans subsidies. The Ministry of Agriculture had no idea about a fifth part of the debt until recently.

For example government’s subsidies debt to Rusagro, one of the biggest agricultural holdings in Russia, totals 800 mln rubles. The company stopped taking out subsidized investment loans at the end of the previous year.

In 2012 the government stopped allocating investment loan subsidies in august and only in some of the country’s regions. This year the situation worsened: subsidies allocation was ceased in May in all regions. 

Farmers do not have money for development, have to save on feeds. According to Alexander Kostikov, a representative of the company Cherkizovo, first signs of loan collapse became evident at the end of 2012; current government’s debt (loan subsidies) to Cherkizovo totals 650 mln rubles. 

In august the Ministry of Agriculture ordered regions to check all projects supported by the government and to estimate how much money is needed to cover the subsidies. It turned out, that the Ministry was informed about 80% of unpaid subsidies only, among 79 regions where investment loans with government support were provided – only 30 acted by law.  

In the beginning of October Dmitry Medvedev, Russian Prime Minister, commissioned the Ministry to collect information about the problem within 10 days and got the amount – 34.5 bln rubles. At the moment the Ministry has only 6.8 bln rubles. 

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