January 27, 2005

Rising Russian meat prices sees government clampdown

On Wednesday, Russia's President Vladimir Putin ordered Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev to work out and implement steps to reduce domestic meat prices, the Kremlin press service said.

At the meeting, Gordeyev revealed that pork prices have increased about 20% in 2004, partly prompted by 30-40% increases on the world market.

The pork import quota for 2005 has been set at 467,400 ton.

Gordeyev said that the problem of expensive imports could be solved by setting up large pig farms.

But analysts say that the livestock sector is likely to remain depressed amid high grain and feed prices and strong competition from imported meat.

In 2004, the number of pigs in Russia was down 11.1% on the year to 14.2 million as of January 1. And the number of cattle was down 6.7% on the year to 23.1 million head.

Increases were posted last year only in the poultry sector, where meat production was up 15% on the year.

Meat production dropped 0.3% on the year to around 7.7 million tons in live weight in 2004.