Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name:N. Shagaida
Author-Name-First:N.    
Author-Name-Last: Shagaida
Author-Workplace-Name:  Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy
Author-Name:V. Uzun
Author-Name-First:V.
Author-Name-Last: Uzun
Author-Workplace-Name:  Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy
Title:  The agriculture and food: does import substitution take place?
Abstract: The situation in the agriculture and with food supplies can be characterized by a number of trends:
• there is high food inflation in Russia for the fourth time in the past ten years; its level does not exceed so far
the indices of 2007, 2008 and 2010;
• reduction of households’ real income resulted in a decrease in demand on food; stable trend of reduction of
retail trade physical volumes is observed;
• the agriculture has reacted to changes in the market situation: output volumes of both export-orientated
production (grain and oil-yielding crop) and import-substituted products (sugar beet instead of sugar-cane),
as well as supplies of buckwheat, potatoes and vegetables have increased; However, from April 2015 growth
rates of the agriculture happened to be below the 2014 level;
• reduction of the volumes of the import of food in foreign currency did not result in reduction of its ruble equivalent
as a whole. The above factor is indirect evidence of the fact that households keep spending a similar
amount of funds as in the previous year on purchasing of a smaller quantity of import products. However, as
regards dairy products, there is a reduction of the import both in volumes and in monetary (foreign currency
and ruble) terms which situation could create conditions for import substitution. Below, the nuances of that
process are considered.
Classification-JEL:  Q
Keywords: Banking sector, Russian Economy
Journal: Russian Economic Developments
Year: 2015
Issue: 11
Month: November
Pages: 51-54
File-URL: http://www.iep.ru/files/RePEc/gai/recdev/627Shagaida.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:gai:recdev:627