July 19, 2006

Ukraine's H1 2006 poultry and pork output up, beef down

Ukraine increased its poultry output in January-June by 25.6 percent on the year to 191,600 tonnes, the State Statistics Committee said.

Pork output during the period increased by 54.3 percent to 55,600 tonnes.

Beef output during the period fell by 15 percent to 62,300 tonnes.

Currently some 200 new pig farms are being constructed in the country, with the number of pigs expected to increase by 2 million in the course of the year.

Ukrainian poultry output is likely to increase this year to 550,000 tonnes from 419,200 tonnes in 2005.

In the last few years, despite bird flu, a number of serious investors entered the pork and poultry markets and considerable financial resources had been invested in upgrading the existing facilities and creating new ones.

The proportion of poultry in the total amount of meat consumed by Ukraine's population this year is likely to increase to 50 percent from 12 percent in 2000.

By 2010 Ukraine plans to be producing 800,000 tonnes of poultry a year, including 500,000 tonnes of broiler chicken meat.