On Tuesday, 1500 farmers from the Krasnodar Krai organized a rally in the city of Tikhoretsk. Agrarians demanded the preservation of economic sanctions, because they help them to develop. I will remind you that 3 years ago the United States and the European Union countries imposed economic sanctions against Russia. In return, Russia restricted the access of products from these countries to the Russian market. The President announced the policy of import substitution. Farmers took the idea with enthusiasm and are now showing excellent results. The growth of the agricultural production last year in Russia amounted to 5%. This is significantly more than the average for the economy.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, in 2016, a record harvest of grain, corn, buckwheat, sunflower, soy, vegetables and fruits was collected. Half a million hectares of arable land was introduced into agricultural processes. Export of agricultural products and food increased by 4% and amounted to 17 billion dollars.
March 29, Russia signed a long-term agreement on the supply of Russian agricultural products to China. We are talking about the export of Russian soybeans, barley, rapeseed, flax seeds, as well as unrefined sunflower oil. Under this agreement, the first trains to China will already depart in mid-April.
In fact, Russia is beginning to feed China more and more. Bread, sausage, sweets, and ice cream are increasingly popular in China. China's market is unlimited for us. Alisa Romanova will tell you about why the Chinese love our food.
Wang Xianzheng, or just Sasha, feels like at home in the Kremlin. He learns about Russia not from textbooks, but from the matryoshka dolls. War and... War and Peace. War and Peace, yes, that's right. Famous... The one behind him is the largest in the world. It can be seen even from Russia. Russia is already five kilometers away. Its border.
The matryoshka-themed park was built to acquaint the Chinese with their neighbor and to consolidate the status of the city of Manchuria as a trade zone with Russia. But people know its taste since childhood. We know bread, sausage, chocolate, ice cream. After an ad showing a box of ice cream from President Xi Jinping, Wang turned into king of ice cream from an average businessman. Every tenth factory in Russia is now his partner. The number of orders increased threefold. New contracts are worth 15 million yuan. Natural milk, not much water, the quality is good.
In China, everyone should try it. Manchuria, or Mangzhou, is the most important checkpoint between Russia and China. Most of the Russian past and present imports pass through this area. For instance, we see a lot of wood, fertilizers, coal, are transported through here. But in the last two years, food products have become the hit of imports. Never has it happen that the boxes with products could not fit in the stores, and the Chinese served Kamchatka crabs and chocolate on the table. In 2016, supplies of food from Russia increased by another 20%.
Previously, all this abundance was known only in the North. Many families here have the following grocery set: flour, butter, milk powder. But now, people from other provinces also order our food. In Beijing, you can even run into this. This is chaga, a birch mushroom. We also brew it with water and drink it. It is very healthy. The Chinese get richer and consume more, but less and less land is suitable for pasture, growing vegetables and grain. One-fifth is poisoned by heavy metals. In the ranking on the level of food safety, China is only in the middle of the list.
By 2020, it will import most of the products. Especially meat. Supplies of pork, chicken, and beef are already being considered in Russia as a lucrative export article in a few years. And last week, the countries agreed on the supply of grain, beans, and butter. For ten years ahead. The contract is for 52 million tons. If we sell products worth half a billion dollars to China, then China buys agricultural products worth a total of more than one hundred billion dollars. It’s not much. We are trying to export agricultural products not only to China, but also to other continents. In China, the trend was picked up by many.
In autumn, the largest website "Epindo" was launched. Literally translates to "a lot of products from Russia". In China, there is a billion and 300 million people. Even if 1% of the population falls in love with the Russian goods, this is already a very large market. Sensational calculations were made in the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. If even 1% of soft drinks and ice cream in China comes from Russia, our trade turnover will grow by 30-40 billion dollars. We know that the water from Baikal is the cleanest and the most healthy one. That’s why people buy it a lot. One more thing is very popular among the confectioners, “Tiramisu”. — Tiramisu. -Yes.
For some reason the Chinese use the name of an Italian dessert for the medovik cake. Honey, sugar, condensed milk, flour, vinegar, everything is from Russia. The volume of this production is much less, but the Chinese should also accustom to the Russian deli meat. For them, the taste is still incomprehensible. We make it without starch. A real taste. The same way, the Russians and the Chinese started to bake bread together. Using the Russian ingredients. There are no additives in the Russian products. So, now people like them.
Even in the legendary Beijing cafe Moskva, bread is called not in Chinese "mehnbao", but in Russian — khleb. Moskva was opened in the times of Mao, in 1954. This was the first foreign restaurant. To this day, people come here to try jelly meat and dressed herring while surrounded by fancy interior. All imported products used to be just exotic, but now they are automatically considered as safe. Your state standard is higher than in China. Therefore, we believe that these goods are better than ours. Honestly speaking.
The Chinese are, of course, conservative when it comes to food and are unlikely to give up their understandable dishes. But all the basic ingredients are produced in Russia: flour, butter, meat, fish, seafood, cereals. In China, it is understood that relations need to be built up for a long time and in such a way that they are not affected by the currency rate or black exports.
