September 30, 2010
Russia doubts Kazakhstan and Belarus on chlorinated poultry imports
Russia's meat-imports inspection service is casting a suspicious eye on its customs union partners, Kazakhstan and Belarus, for chlorinated chicken that made their way into the country.
Gennady Onishchenko, head of Russia's meat-imports inspection service, implied that slicksters in Kazakhstan and Belarus were repackaging chlorinated US chicken imports under brand names from their homelands to get around the chlorine ban.
An irony of Gennady Onishchenko's accusation is that the Russian ban is a non-tariff barrier designed to protect its domestic industry-and Kazakhstan recently adopted that Russian approach to protecting its own industry.
"Attempts are being made to bring chlorine-treated poultry of US producers to Russia, repackaged under (the brand names of) producers from third states," Onishchenko said.
Although he did not mention Kazakhstan or Belarus by name, there was no doubt who he thought the culprits were. "The eased requirements that members of the Customs Union enjoy facilitate such deliveries to our country," he said.
Russia banned American imports on January 1 because of a chlorine rinse that US companies used to kill bacteria before shipping the meat overseas. But it recently lifted the ban after agreeing that American producers could use any of three substitute antibacterial rinses-cetylpyridinium chloride, peroxyacetic acid or hydrogen peroxide.
Russia must think that some chlorinated meat was en route to the country by the back door before US suppliers made the switch. The non-tariff barriers like the chlorinated-chicken ban that Russia has imposed lifted domestic producers' share of the chicken market from 39% in 2005 to 80% in 2009.
Taking heed, Kazakhstan has borrowed from Russia's non-tariff-barrier success to erect barriers of its own to protect its poultry industry. The key barrier is a sophisticated twist on a quota. A pure quota is a limit on the amount of a product that a country will accept from overseas suppliers.
