The Russian government bought a total of 125,685 tonnes of grain on Tuesday at the last tender this year aimed at stabilising prices, data supplied by an exchange in charge of the tenders showed. It was not immediately clear when government will hold more tenders in 2010, after purchasing 1.488 million tonnes to date.
The United Grain Company, the state grain trader and the government's agent for the tenders had planned to stop the tenders by December 25, but so far it has bought much less grain than the originally planned 2.5 million tonnes. On December 25, First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said the tenders will continue to buy another 1.5 million tonnes of grain. At the time, 1.4 million had been bought.