July 21, 2009

By 2012, Russia plans to stop importing pork, replacing it entirely with the Russian produced meat.

This ambitious task has been set before producers by the first Vice-Prime Minister, Viktor Zubkov.

Statements made by American and Russian trade officials testify that battles around the Russian meat market are going to be hot indeed.

Zubkov said that Russia should increase the production of pork not less than 200,000 tonnes (this year's forecast is 400,000 tonnes) annually up to 2012, to eliminate the need in supplies from abroad.

US pork producers are not looking forward to such a prospect, as the Russian market is fifth in terms of volume for US pork.

US trade negotiations representative Ron Kirk thinks that Russia imposes many unjust phyto-sanitary restrictions on US meat supplies, depriving a large number of producers of the right for export "at will."

Last month, the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) appealed to the US president, Barak Obama to oppose Russia's accession to the WTO due to Russia's Federal Veterinary Service Rosselkhoznadzor imposing a ban on the pork imports from 30 US enterprises. Some of the bans have been lifted, but new ones start up.

For Russian processors, a cut in US pork imports will have little effect on them. Last year, US pork imports accounted for only 10 percent of the total Russian import of pork.

At the same time, however, the US import bans have evoked a 10 percent to 15 percent price rise of the pork, even though, producers thought that the hysteria around AH1N1 flu would frighten customers off, so that pork sales and prices would drop profoundly.