Israel set to send supplies of meat to Russia by the year-end
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said the country was actively engaged in the inspection of a number of Israeli meat and dairy companies, with a view to gaining supplies soon. In turn, Israeli officials expect that the Russian food embargo will boost Israel’s agricultural exports to the country, which, in monetary terms, should reach US$1bn in 2015 – a threefold increase on 2014.
“The first batches of Israeli livestock products may appear on grocery shelves in Russia by the end of the year, as the inspections of the country’s farms and processing facilities are almost complete,” said Dvorkovich.
Russian officials noted that Israel has not introduced sanctions against Russia, and Russia did not include Israel in the list of countries affected by the food embargo, which should benefit agricultural production turnover between the two countries in the year ahead.
“I believe our customers will be satisfied [with the quality of Israel livestock production],” said Dvorkovich. According to him, during recent years, Israel was seeking ways to expand supplies of fruit and vegetables to Russia, but the current situation gave Israel a good opportunity for meat supplies.
Israel’s Minister of Agriculture Yair Shamir previously claimed Israel would not stop supplying agricultural products to Russia, even if the European Union (EU) put pressure on the country to do so. Moreover, he claimed that Israel would seek a way to partially replace the food products from the US and the EU on the Russian market.
“We can increase it [exports of agricultural production to Russia] to the level of US$1bn per year. Of course, it’s not the US$40bn that the Russians previously spent to purchase the same products in Europe, but $1bn in the short term is possible for us. I’m talking about the coming year, if Russia removes barriers on the supply of chicken meat [from Israel]. We sell this around the world, but so far it is not supplied to Russia, mostly due to bureaucracy issues,” he stated.
He also expected that, in future, Israeli meat products would remain on the Russian market even if the Russians’ current food embargo were lifted, as the “supplies of meat [from Israel] would be free from any political background”.
According to preliminary information, the negotiations between two countries so far relate only to poultry meat products. However, in coming years, Israel could also launch beef product exports to Russia.
