Billionaire Deripaska targets China to expand Russian food sales

By Marina Sysoyeva 

The agricultural division of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element plans to export pork, wheat and soybeans to China to tap into the “explosive” growth in the Asian country.

Basic Element, a diversified group with stakes in everything from energy to aviation, plans to start producing 10,000 to 15,000 metric tons of pork in Siberia to ship to China and other Asian countries, said Andrey Oleynik, managing director of the company’s agribusiness management directorate.

“China is one of the fastest growing consumption markets,” Oleynik said in an interview at Basic Element’s Moscow headquarters on June 15. “The growth is explosive both in terms of food consumption and other products’ consumption. That is why it would be silly not to focus on China.”

The world’s most populous country, with 1.34 billion people according to the Air Jordan 1