July 20, 2009

 

Brazil lobbies Russia on chicken import quotas

The Brazilian Chicken Producers and Exporters Association, or Abef, is lobbying Russia to revise its chicken import quotas for 2010, local newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo reported Friday (July 17).

 

Abef's executive director, Ricardo Santin, will officially request that the Russian government raise its import quota policy during a Brazilian mission to Moscow Monday, the newspaper reported.

 

"This is the fifth Brazilian mission to Russia. We will ask the Russians one more time to adopt a preferred country status and end the fixed geographic quota policy," the newspaper reported Santin as saying. Abef was unavailable for further comment.

 

Currently, Russia's policy is to import a maximum of 1.2 million tonnes of chicken per year. Of this total, the US has a quota of 760,000 tonnes, and Europe has a share of 280,000 tonnes. All other exporting countries, including Brazil, are allotted a quota of 12,000 tonnes per year.

 

According to Abef figures, Brazil exported 34,980 tonnes of chicken to Russia in the first half of 2009, down nearly 60 percent from the same period last year.

 

Brazil's quota was reduced from 68,000 tonnes as Russia raised the quota for the US in exchange for its support in Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization. The tariff that Brazil must pay for imports that exceed its quota was also increased to 95 percent from 65 percent, the newspaper reported.

 

Brazil is the world's No. 1 exporter of poultry.