April 23, 2007

Russian meat imports on the rise

Russian meat imports are increasing as the import duty rate for pork and poultry supplied beyond the quota does not contain the deliveries, acting head of the Agriculture Ministry's department for regulation of agriculture and food markets Sergei Sukhov said Friday (April 20).

Pork imports enlarged by one-third this January to February, and 45 percent of the deliveries were made beyond the quota, he said.

Sukhov said meat quotas distributed in countries do not correspond to the real meat importers which makes the deliveries unstable. He added the quotas are not applied to CIS member countries, including Belarus, which are enlarging meat deliveries.