August 28, 2008

Russia's import quotas for pork and poultry will be cut by "hundreds of thousands of tonnes," agriculture minister Alexey Gordeyev said in Moscow Wednesday (August 27).

The government decided Wednesday to revise the existing import quotas, Gordeyev said.

He said the domestic pork and poultry industry was developing fast and it was time to reduce imports, which had been increasing too fast lately.

Russia's international agreements regulating the import of pork and poultry were signed more than three years ago and now they did not answer Russian interests, Gordeyev said.

The government is preparing a programme to finance agriculture in 2009-2012, with RUB21 billion extra money a year allocated from the federal budget, including RUB4 billion for subsidies to the meat and poultry industry.

Russia needs annually 2.8 million tonnes of poultry, while supply on the domestic market is 3.4 million tonnes. The domestic poultry industry produces 2.1 million tonnes and imports amount to 1.3 million tonnes, of which about 900,000 tonnes from the US.