Tridge summary
On the 13th, at a supermarket in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, North Africa, almost empty food stands made of bread and wheat were written on the front saying "1 bag per person (sale)." AFP Yonhap News Russia has decided not to export major grains such as wheat and sugar to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) for the time being. Russia, the world's number one wheat exporter, is taking this measure limited to the former Soviet Union member states, but if the war is prolonged, the repercussions will spread to the Middle East and Africa, and a global food shortage may occur. On the 14th (local time), Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin banned the export of wheat, rye, barley, and maize to the Eurasian Economic Union until June 30 "to protect the domestic food market-facing external restrictions". Russia's state-run news agency reported that they signed an order to ban the export of raw sugar until August 31. The Eurasian Economic Federation is an economic union composed of Russia and former Soviet member states, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan. It is interpreted as a preemptive measure to prevent the deterioration of the food situation in the country due to Western economic sanctions caused by the invasion of Ukraine. Earlier, the Russian government had recently expressed concern that grain exports to the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union, where Customs Free Zones operate, are rapidly increasing. Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko said other countries would continue to allow grain exports to individually licensed traders within their export quotas. According to the Economic Complexity Observatory (OEC), a research institute affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the world's largest wheat exporter in 2019 was Russia, with $8.14 billion in exports. Ukraine is also the fifth largest exporter of wheat with 3.11 billion dollars worth of wheat in the same year. Combined, the two countries' wheat exports account for more than a quarter of the world's exports. For that reason, if the war in Ukraine, which is considered one of the world's three largest breadbaskets, prolongs and Russia further restricts exports due to domestic food conditions, these two countries will inevitably suffer great damage.