Russian government cuts wheat export tax to zero, IFX reports

 Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, cut the wheat export tax to zero, effective from July 9, the Interfax news agency reported on Friday, citing the Russian agriculture ministry.

It is the first time the tax has been removed since it was introduced in 2021 to protect the domestic market from price spikes and to discourage excessive exports.

It is calculated as 70% of the difference between an indicative price, derived from export contract data and calculated on a weekly basis, and a base price set by the agriculture ministry.

A higher base price results in a lower duty.

The indicative price was set at $228.7 per ton of wheat on Friday. The duty was set at zero.

In January, the duty had reached its highest level to date, at 4,699.6 roubles ($59.87) per ton.

Farmers have regularly appealed to the government to abolish or reduce the duty, saying it harms the profitability of wheat farming and that only a small portion of the collected funds are returned to the sector.

($1 = 78.4955 roubles)Reporting by Maxim Rodionov and Olga Popova; Writing by Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Louise Heavens and Barbara Lewis

This article has been republished from The Reuters.