Japan-based Sumitomo Corp. is establishing a business in Moscow, Russia to sell agrochemical products in the Russian market.
The new company, to be named Summit Agro (a division of Sumitomo subsidiary Sumitomo Summit Agro Europe), will begin operations in January 2008, and will sell herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides as well as grain, sunflower seeds and rapeseeds.
Forecasts predict that the company will have sales of around US $216 million by 2010.
In its statement, Sumitomo noted that the Russian agrochemical market has been growing at around 17.5% per year over the last five years. Stable growth is expected to continue in the future, taking into account the overall growth in the Russian economy and the government's measures to support agriculture, according to Sumitomo.
Sumitomo Group currently owns nine companies that sell agrochemicals in France, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Italy, Spain, Ukraine, and Bulgaria.