Major poultry meat buyer Russia, which is rapidly developing domestic breeding, is looking into cutting import quotas set for 2010-2012, poultry breeders' lobby said on Tuesday (Apr 27).

 

"Planned poultry meat import volumes evidently do not correspond to the balance created as a result of lower demand and an increase in the domestic production," Galina Bobylyova, general director of the Russian Poultry Breeders Union, said.

 

Russia  sets import tariff quotas, under which suppliers may ship determined volumes at a discounted tariff. Poultry import quotas were set at 780,000 tonnes for 2010, 600,000 tonnes for 2011 and 550,000 tonnes for 2012.

 

"With demand of 3.4 million tonnes and the 2.855 (million) tonnes we are going to produce this year, we will need no more than 500,000-600,000 tonnes," Bobylyova said.

 

She said Russia would need approximately 415,000 tonnes of poultry imports in 2011 and 250,000 tonnes in 2012.

 

Russia is expected to increase domestic poultry output further to 3.055 million tonnes in 2011 and to 3.255 million tonnes in 2012. In 2009, Russia produced 2.54 million tonnes, up from 2.217 million in 2008, Bobylyova said.

 

Bobylyova said imports of poultry meat declined to 49,000 tonnes in the first quarter of 2010 from 147,000 tonnes in the first three months a year ago, as a result of the ban.

 

The country also banned supplies from January 19 saying that a chlorine wash used routinely in US processing plants and was in violation of its food safety standards.

 

Washington says its poultry is safe, but negotiations between the two countries have not brought it back to the Russian market so far.

 

Russia aims to become self-sufficient in poultry imports within three years, but the lobby says the country will still need imports after 2012.