Opening the meeting Mr Zubkov stressed that the preservation and effective use of this year's harvest was a priority considering the situation in the world financial and food markets.

"Russia's potential in the international grain market is 20 million tons. As of today 9.8 million tons of grain has been exported," Mr Zubkov said.

He revealed that from the results of a series of conferences and consultations on the situation in the grain market held by the Government with experts and business representatives the grain balances have been formed, the price situation through the whole chain from the producer to the consumer has been analysed, the possibility of reducing infrastructure costs has been revealed, the current export support mechanisms have been reviewed and the world experience of the grain market support has been studied.

The meeting discussed a complex of actions to preserve and increase the country's export potential. Among the measures proposed are cutting infrastructure costs, including the cost of transportation, reloading and forwarding of grain, government support for grain exports, cutting the time of VAT refund to 30 days, stepping up supplies of Russian grain and flour to the traditional and new foreign markets, including under intergovernmental agreements.