Russia claims to have covered its meat deficit
According to Fyodorov, this was achieved mainly by opening up to new suppliers, as new countries obtained the permission of Russian veterinary body Rosselkhoznadzor to export meat products to Russia. “Given the number of contracts already concluded, this [deficit] problem has been eliminated,” he said.
Official statistics showed that the Russian pork market was especially hard hit by the food embargo, which caused a rise in prices and a fall in demand for pork products from meat processing companies. However, as of October, Customs statistics indicated that Russia had not yet restored imports of pork to their levels prior to the embargo.
Imports of pork to Russia from foreign countries in October 2014 fell by 37.5% in monetary terms – to US$85.8 million compared to October 2013. In September 2014, Russia imported 58% less pork year-on-year.
“These figures mainly reflect the supply of goods ordered in late August to early September, and a rise in the cost of imports due to the weakening of the Russian rouble,” said Sergey Yushin, CEO of Russia’s National Meat Association. He added that, in fact, in August-October 2014 the only large alternative meat supplier to the Russian market was Brazil.
“There are no other countries that can supply pork instead of Canada, the US and the European Union (EU). For example, Chile is very small exporter, while large supplies from Vietnam, China and Thailand have not yet been launched,” he said. According to data from the Russian Federal Customs Service, in August-October 2014 Latin America increased its supply of pork to Russia by 76% to US$243m year-on-year.
Earlier, Russia’s deputy minister of agriculture Andrei Volkov explained: “The banned supplies of pork have already been replaced – at least in terms of immediate consumption on the market.” In other words, there is still some deficit of pork for meat processing companies, which use it to produce sausages.
He added that the Russian pork market had replaced its main importer, with Canada’s position being taken by Brazil. At the same time, according to deputy agriculture minister Dmitry Yuriev, Russia still has large-scale plans to improve its situation and become self-sufficient in meat.
On average, Russia plans to decrease the volume of meat imports threefold within the next two years. Thus, according to the Agriculture Ministry, it is expected that pork imports will decline from 620,000 tonnes (t) in 2013 to 185,000t in 2017, while poultry meat imports will go down from 549,000t in 2013 to 158,000t by 2017. The total amount of investment in meat import substitution during this period is estimated to be RUB293bn (US$6.3bn).
