Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Gordeyev held a working meeting with The Minister of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev, the head of the Rosselkhoznadzor Sergey Dankvert and representatives of the Ministry of Energy, industry associations, unions and organizations. The participants discussed the development of vegetable production and state support for domestic greenhouses.
During the meeting, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Elena Fastova presented a report on the current situation in the industry and state support measures. Elena Fastova noted that the production of greenhouse vegetables had increased by 65% compared to 2014. Last year, Russian producers collected more than 1 million tons, and in the next 4-5 years, annual production could be increased to 1.5 million tons. This progress resulted from expanding the area of greenhouses, the establishment of large vegetable growing companies and improved performance of production facilities. Nevertheless, despite the serious pace of development, the country still faces the problem of winter time self-sufficiency in vegetables. Further development of this sector will be supported by changes in the current mechanism of preferential investment loans developed by the Ministry of Agriculture.
Aleksey Gordeev stressed that the control over tariffs and the preservation of comfortable conditions for business is extremely important for the greenhouse vegetable growing industry. Too high tariffs of natural monopolies may adversely affect the development of this sector. The Vice Premier also reminded of the legislative limitation of their inflation rate.
Following the discussion, the initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture on the extension of investment loans for greenhouses was approved. The Ministry should prepare a draft of the relevant changes in the regulatory framework by October 1, 2019. In addition, Aleksey Gordeyev instructed the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia, the Federal Antimonopoly Service, the Ministry of Energy and the Greenhouses of Russia branch association, to study the feasibility of increasing the electricity cost for greenhouses.