Russian Government To Support Meat Production
RUSSIAN FEDERATION - The Russian government has approved a new plan to increase domestic food output and reduce the country’s import dependence. Within the plan’s objectives, domestic meat production should increase 85 per cent by 2015.The plan follows other recent government incentives which have been successful in increasing pork and poultry production. These increases have also been supported additional import restrictions for these products, such as the latest ban on US poultry as a result of chlorine treatment limits, according to Meat and Livestock Australia.
In addition to the incentives, the Russian Meat Union has stated that the government will need to increase meat import barriers and provide producers with long term loans of no less than 10-15 years.
According to the Russian Ministry of Agriculture, domestic meat production rose 14 per cent in 2009 to 3.3 million tonnes cwt year-on-year. However, beef production continues to decline due to the lack of profitability in the industry, while unprocessed beef imports in 2009 decreased 22 per cent to 635,842 tonnes swt, due to the disruption in trade after 2008’s financial crisis and reduced processed beef demand.
Brazil continued to be Russia’s largest supplier despite imports from this market declining 20 per cent to 322,831 tonnes swt in 2009. Imports from Argentina jumped 97 per cent to 136,972 due to increased production in 2009, but are expected to decline this year.
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