Russian Agriculture Emerging From Crisis

Vice-premier of the Russian government, head of the ministry of agriculture and food Alexei Gordeyev believes that the country's agriculture went out of crisis. Gordeyev said at the government's session that Russian agriculture had been showing stable growth for the third year now. The growth of agricultural produce this year made up on average 5.5 percent, in the food and processing industry -- 9 percent. The volume of gross agricultural produce will increase this year by 6 percent according to preliminary estimate. Speaking about the main problems facing agriculture, Gordeyev pointed to growing payables which today amount to 286 billion roubles. Gordeyev believes that payables will be considerably reduced by April 1, 2002.