MOSCOW (April 16 2003) : The Russian government may scrap a five percentimport tariff on soyabeans to stimulate domestic processing, a spokesmanfor the Economic Development and Trade Ministry said on Tuesday.

"We believe that we are able to process soyabeans into good qualitysoyameal and soyaoil domestically," Konstantin Bogdanov told Reuters.

Bogdanov said the Commission for Protective Measures in Foreign Trade, apanel responsible for drafting government resolutions on customs tariffs,is scheduled to discuss dropping the tariff on Thursday.

Russia's soyabean imports stood at around 70,000 tonnes in 2002, comparedto 13,000 tonnes in 2001, said Nikolai Demyanov, director of the marketingdepartment of Roskhleboprodukt, the country's largest soyabean productsimporter and processor.

But imports of soyameal, an important poultry and pork feed, rose to270,000 tonnes from 231,000 in 2001, while soyaoil imports rose to 500,000tonnes from 416,000, he told Reuters.

Russia produced 350,000 tonnes of soyabeans in 2002, slightly up from342,000 in 2001.

Russia recently scrapped a five percent import tariff on soyameal tostimulate domestic poultry and pork breeding.-Reuters