MOSCOW, August 19 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian region of Siberia has the potential to export up to 5 million metric tons of grain to Southeast Asia every year, the agriculture minister said Saturday.
"Siberia has the real soil-and-climate potential to produce about 5 mln tons of grain for export to China, japan, Vietnam and Korea," Alexey Gordeyev told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily newspaper.
Gordeyev said that grain consumption in Southeast Asia had been constantly growing in recent years and Russia had been conducting proactive talks with Japan and China on grain exports to these countries.
"If we build the 'eastern corridor' [and this is a complex task that includes the problems of tariffs, political barriers], we will be able to give an enormous boost to the development of agriculture in Siberia," the minister said.
