Russia accuses Brazil of overpricing meat supplies
According to Sergey Dankvert, head of the veterinary service, prices have risen significantly in recent months and could soon hinder the development of Brazilian meat exports to the Russian market.
“Brazil needs to reduce the price of its products because the Russian market is also of interest to large suppliers such as India and China, which could become serious competitors to Brazilian meat,” said Dankvert.
Dankvert also informed Marcelo Ferraz, Brazilian secretary for international relations in agribusiness, about the need to lower prices for products supplied to the territory of the Customs Union.
“Despite the fact that a large number of Brazilian livestock products have gained access to the Russian market, following inspection by the veterinary service of Brazil, there has been no substantial increase in exports to Russia,” said Dankvert. “This appears to be due, in part, to the pricing policies [of Brazilian suppliers] and partly to the fact that accredited businesses have not yet signed contracts with Russian importers.”
At the same time, Russia has seriously increased its poultry imports from Brazil. According to preliminary statistics, last month the volume of imports of Brazilian poultry to Russia rose by 2.5 times from 8,000 tonnes (t) in August to 20,000t in September.
However, Russia is more interested in pork and beef imports from Brazil, as these segments of the market are seeing real supply shortages. Yet Rosselkhoznadzor still has concerns over the quality of Brazilian products.
At the end of September the Russian veterinary watchdog banned the supply of several batches of poultry and beef to the country, amounting to a total of 54t, due to violations by suppliers of the Customs Union’s veterinary regulations.
“Russia banned meat imports from Brazil in 2011, due to the detection of growth promoter ractopamine in several shipments of meat products. Over the past few years, there were no signs that the Brazilian meat industry has refrained from using ractopamine or has established a system that would guarantee that no meat with this hormone would be delivered to Russia,” said experts from Russian analytical agency Agrorukom.
Rosselkhoznadzor lifted restrictions on meat imports from Brazil on 6 August 2014, almost immediately after imposing trade sanctions on meat supplies from the EU, US, Canada and several other countries.
