President Vladimir Putin said at an annual press conference that the growth in the nation's agricultural sector by the end of the year will at least be at 4%. Such growth rate is above the earlier projected 3% growth.
"As for the agricultural sector, there is, actually, some impressive growth, last year it was 2.6 percent, this year we planned 3 percent. At this point it is 4.1 percent, so by the end of the year it will be no less than 4 percent," President Putin said.
He praised the excellent result in the country's grain harvest which he said will reach over 119 million metric tons, a record high in the last few years.
"I want to thank farmers for this work, for this result. And I want to stress that there has been nothing like that in the recent history of Russia. In the Soviet period, on the territory where the Russian Soviet Republic was formed later, there were results like this in the 1970s, maybe even a little more than this in 1973, in 1976, but we know that at that time, even with that kind of harvest, there was, unfortunately, not enough food or forage," the president said.
According to the president, the current attitude and structural changes in the agricultural sector reflect a unique result, creating good opportunities for the further development of the agriculture.
President Putin also said that the Russian government will allocate $3.5 billion (216 billion rubles) to the agricultural-industrial sector of the country.
"In 2017, the government plans to continue subsidizing separate sectors in need of state support. In total, 7.5 billion rubles are envisaged for the industry and 216 billion [rubles] for the agriculture," he stated.
The government has initially planned to allocate 204 billion rubles in the sector.
Join the Conversation