The Agricultural Policy Ministry hopes that the Agrarian Fund will begin purchasing grain crops harvested in 2008 from July.

Agricultural Policy Minister Yurii Melnik has announced this at a press conference.

"From July 1 the Agrarian Fund starts working at the agrarian exchange. I think, this is even a bit early," he said.

Yu. Melnik explains his opinion with that harvesting of wheat will be launched after first ten days of July.

The minister noted, the Agrarian Fund now has UAH 150 million to make purchases and this must be enough for six weeks of operation: the minister expects the parliament will pass amendments to the state budget for this period so the Agrarian Fund's expenses extended to UAH 1 billion.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the State Material Reserves Committee decided to hold the first tender for purchasing 200,000 tons of grain harvested in 2008 on July 16.

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