OREANDA-NEWS. September 16, 2010. Unlike in neighboring states there are no reasons to panic buying of food products in Belarus, said Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Sidorsky during his working visit to Lida.

“The country has enough foodstuffs in store, including all kinds of cereal products. We fully satisfy our own demand,” said the head of government.

In his words, buckwheat is being gathered in and delivered to processing companies that steadily operate. Sergei Sidorsky is convinced there will be as much buckwheat in shops as necessary. The demand for cereal products is artificially inflated, remarked Sergei Sidorsky.

Belarus is a transit country and welcomes both Ukrainians and Russians. “Last week I asked to have a look at bordering regions of Russia. It was ascertained that Belarusian buckwheat is on sale there. No need to worry, we have enough of these products. Besides, in the last few days the turnout of cereal products was increased to keep shops supplied”. If there is some shortage of cereal products, irregular deliveries to retail shops are to blame. Speaking about prices for cereal products, Sergei Sidorsky said that buckwheat prices had been slightly raised to prevent a major drain of Belarusian buckwheat to Russia. Sergei Sidorsky made it clear that the home market price for buckwheat will still be lower than prices abroad.

In Lida the Prime Minister visited two retail shops, got familiar with what they had on sale and wondered whether they had any shortage of any food. He made sure that the demand is fully satisfied.

“Raising tensions cannot lead to anything good,” said the Prime Minister. Speaking about the availability of butter in stores, Sergei Sidorsky said that all dairy factories are supplied with milk and processing enterprises operate as usual. “Belarus exports about 80% of the butter it makes. Within a day we could re-route some of the export traffic to the home market,” said Sergei Sidorsky.

Also Belarus Prime Minister has told, that Belarus will not buy hard wheat flour this year.

Belarus used to purchase some 150 or 250 thousand tonnes of hard wheat flour. Now Belarus has enough hard wheat flour of good quality. “The problem has been solved with the help of scientists, and next year all baked goods in Belarus (both brown and white bread) will be made of Belarusian-grown grain,” stressed Sergei Sidorsky.

The Prime Minister added that the country has completely solved the problem of vermicelli and macaroni production.