May 19, 2011

Belarus and Russia appraise dairy products' prices

The Minister of Agriculture and Food of Belarus, Mikhail Rusyi, and Russian Agriculture Minister, Yelena Skrynnik, evaluated the data on the quantity of dairy goods from Belarus to Russia and prices for these products via a videoconference.

The Agriculture Ministry of Belarus undertakes to detect and prevent supplies of dairy products to the Russian Federation at the prices which will vary from the recommended prices.

In cases when prices for exported cheese to Russia are below the recommended prices, a decision will be taken to suspend deliveries of this product from a particular company.

For the situation in the Russian milk market to get stabilised, Belarus is ready to suspend deliveries of dried whey and dried whole milk to Russia temporarily.

The Food and Agriculture Ministry of Belarus, Belarusian dairy suppliers jointly with the National Diary Producers Union of the Russian Federation are expected to work out a mechanism for delivery of milk powder products, butter from Belarus to Russia via the authorised Belarusian companies with a possible use of auctions at the Russian exchange. The sides will scrutinise the issue of setting up a joint Belarusian-Russian dairy company very soon with a possible participation of the trading networks.

During the videoconference the Belarusian side drew attention to the need for tougher measures to protect the single market against the supplies of goods from third countries on dumping prices. Butter consignments from New Zealand to Russia were cited as an example. Last year, Russian bought 28,000 tonnes of butter from New Zealand (21% of the total import) and 56,000 tonnes of butter from Belarus (42%). The average price for New Zealand product taking into account the import customs duty was 1.5 times lower than for the Belarusian product.

Over the last three years, the import of some dairy products to Russia from third countries has sharply increased. Thus, in 2010, the import of dry skimmed milk from Belarus to Russia went up by 2,000 tonnes over 2008 while the export of this product from Europe soared by 50,000 tonnes. The import of butter from Belarus was at the same level at a time when the import of butter from Europe increased by 10,000 tonnes, Oceania (New Zealand) by 4,000 tonnes. The deliveries of cheese from Europe to the Russian Federation were up by 50,000 tonnes while from Belarus only by 25,000 tonnes.