Ukraine loses US$4m, due to Russian meat trade restrictions
A regime of intensified laboratory control over bovine meat from Ukraine, starting in 2013, and a ban on the previously permitted annual import of 40 tonnes (t) of frozen beef from Ukraine to Russia, imposed since 14 July (2014), has cost the Ukraine meat sector US$3m (€2.4m), according to Brussels.
A ban on the import of pork meat and other pork products from Ukraine into Russia since 14 July, caused the former a loss of US$1m (€801,000), Brussels data shows. In early October, however, Russia resumed certification of pig products from four Ukrainian enterprises, according to the EC information.
The Russian federal service for veterinary and phytosanitary surveillance, Rosselkhoznadzor, has also been firmly controlling Ukraine meat exports in the second half of 2014, with seizures or rejections of cargoes increasing.
At the end of September, for example, Rosselkhoznadzor said it had returned 450 kilogrammes of fat and 740 kilogrammes of meat of unknown origins to Ukraine. The consignments were discovered at two railway stations, on containers delivered by Ukrainians and Moldovans, without any accompanying veterinary documents, according to the Russian authority.
The EC has made its calculations based on statistics on trade between Ukraine and Russia in 2013 and 2014. Available data from the Ukrainian state statistics service show that, in 2013, the country exported to Russia fresh, chilled and frozen beef meat amounting to US$68.6m(€54.9m). Ukrainian exports of pork meat to Russia in the same year were valued at US$19.4m (€15.5m). However, poultry exports from Ukraine into Russia had the highest value, according to official Ukraine statistics: US$71.6m (€57.4m).
Ukraine has not been able to make up these losses through higher exports to the European Union (EU), since the country does not comply with EU sanitary standards for beef and pork meat. "The food safety conditions need to be fulfilled irrespective of what happens to Ukrainian exports to Russia," an EC spokesperson told GlobalMeatNews. "Ukraine still needs to implement regulatory changes and do the necessary adaptations at farm level to be able to export animal beef and pork to the European market," he added.
Ukraine can export poultry meat to the EU, however. This and the removal of EU import duties in anticipation of the implementation of the EU-Ukraine free trade and association agreement has already helped the country increase poultry exports to the 28-country bloc, according to the European livestock and meat trading union (UECBV). This expansion is expected to continue next year.
