October 7, 2011

Ukraine expects beef, poultry prices to rise, pork to decline

The Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation said they expect increments in beef and poultry meat prices and a price fall for pork.

The Confederation said that when taking gradual reduction of cattle population into account, and also in view of other factors, beef price growth is expected.

As of September 1, 2011, cattle population in Ukraine made up 5.2 head, which was 3.2% less than the same period of last year.

Confederation's analysts said that lately, the problems in provision of Ukrainian consumers with beef are increasing. Over eight months of 2011, the stake of beef in the total meat production structure made up only 7%.

Oleksandr Yaroslavskyi, the deputy director general of the Confederation, said that over recent years, Ukraine has reduced the dependence on importation of meat, and has gradually increased volume of production and export of poultry and pork meat.

He noted that beef export over eight months of 2011 has decreased by 18% to 9,100 tonnes and the volumes of import remained at the level of the previous year.

Taking in account production volumes, export and import, the total meat supply in the domestic market made up 743,000 tonnes in January-August, having fallen by 6%, compared to the same indicator of last year, inter alia in view of 26% reduction of pork supply, and 6% of poultry meat supply.

According to the media, the Cabinet of Ministers expects production of meat to increase by 4.1% in 2012 and expects meat exports to increase to 0.075 million tonnes compared to the expected exports of 0.07 million tonnes in 2011.

Meat imports are expected to total 0.316 million tonnes in 2012, 4.6% more than the expected imports in 2011.