The volume of exports of Russian agricultural machinery plants in the first six months of 2021 increased by 35% compared to the same period last year, exceeding 10 billion rubles, Rosspetsmash said.

"In total, in January-June this year domestic machines were supplied to agrarians from 32 countries. The main foreign markets in the first half of the year were the CIS and European Union countries, also Russian manufacturers continue to increase supplies to Mongolia, develop markets of Africa, Middle East and Brazil," the association said.

The greatest growth of exports is recorded in the following segments: shipments abroad of reapers rose by 94%, plows - by 85%, balers - by 72%, sprayers - by 71%, four-wheel drive agricultural tractors - 48%, harrows - by 37%. As for the countries, in 2021, shipments to Germany increased in money terms by 5 times, to Azerbaijan - 4.3 times, to Poland - 2.9 times, to Mongolia - 2.7 times, to Slovakia - 2.1 times, to Kyrgyzstan - 94%, to Kazakhstan - 43%, to Moldova - 37%, to France - 25%.

One of the main reasons for the growth is high grain prices on the world market, which allowed the agrarian business to set aside funds for additional investment in the modernization of agricultural production, explained in Rosspetsmash.

"Despite record deliveries of domestic agricultural machinery abroad in 2020, there is still a high pent-up demand for agricultural machinery in a number of countries. Due to stringent restrictions due to the spread of the coronavirus infection, many farms are only now returning to the issue of purchasing new machinery, which helps maintain high growth rates for Russian machinery exports. In addition, domestic manufacturers do not experience such problems with the supply of components as some foreign companies do. This is due to the high proportion of localization of production and the fact that domestic component manufacturers have not suspended their work in 2020 and 2021," the association noted.

A positive impact on the development of exports of Russian agricultural machinery has a positive effect, including the current set of measures of state support to stimulate production, subsidizing research and development (R&D), transportation, costs for the guarantee of repurchase. Thanks to all this, companies are increasing investments in the expansion and modernization of production facilities, in the development and production of new models.

The association stresses that in spite of the high base of 2020, the growth rate of export deliveries in April-June 2021 could have been higher, if not for the unprecedented rise in metal prices. A survey of manufacturers of specialised machinery showed that metal has risen 56-87% for them since July 2020, causing the cost of producing machinery to increase by more than 20%.

"Many agrarians renew their fleet of machinery only due to the mechanisms of state support. Under the terms of these programs, plants are limited in price increases by the deflator coefficient (in 2021 it is 5%). Therefore, companies, having set the price for their products in December 2020, cannot increase it, even if the metal has risen sharply and continues to rise in price. If the problem of rising metal prices is not solved in time, Russian manufacturers of agricultural equipment will find it difficult to maintain the rate of growth in export shipments and production as a whole," says Rosspetsmash.

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Author: Karina Kamalova