Russia to secure poultry supply by 2015

The Russian Prime Minister Putin has announced that all poultry meat imports may be stopped by 2015 as the country is aiming at self-sufficiency by that date.

Russia may stop importing poultry by 2015, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last week, backing a ban imposed on US chicken imports at the beginning of the year.

Chairing a meeting on poultry production in Snegirevka in the Leningrad region, Putin said: "We have not seen any readiness to meet Russian standards on the part of some of our partners, mainly the companies from the US. If our foreign suppliers are unable or reluctant to meet our security requirements, we will use other sources," he said, Interfax reported.

Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Federal Consumer Protection Service, signed a decree in June 2008 outlawing the use of chlorine in poultry treatments used by some US producers but he later pushed back the starting date for the measure to January 1, 2010.

Putin rejected suggestions that the ban was political in nature, saying Russia had simply adopted regulations that were already in effect throughout the EU.

He added that Russia would gradually replace imported poultry with domestic production and could halt poultry imports altogether in four or five years.

The country plans to import a total of 780,000 tonnes of poultry in 2010 and gradually decrease the share of imports to 550,000 tonnes by 2012, according to a decree signed by the government in December.

The government cut the US poultry quota for 2010 to 600,000 tonnes, or 20% of the poultry market, last December, down from 750,000 tonnes in 2009.

Wholesale prices for US imported poultry jumped to RUB70 (US$2.36) per kilo since the ban was introduced on January 1, up 20% from RUB58 (US$1.95) at the end of December, Yevgeny Kogan, chairman of the Food Trade Group said.