Russia considers cuts on poultry, pork import quotas

By Janie Gabbett on 8/28/2008
of MeatingPlace.com

Russia is contemplating reducing its poultry and pork import quotas by hundreds of thousands of tons, the country's agriculture minister was quoted as saying Wednesday.

"It is time to change the quota regime and reduce imports, which have unfortunately built up in recent years," Alexei Gordeyev told reporters, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Referring to the current quota agreements, Gordeyev said, "Agreements, signed more than three years ago as part of the negotiations on WTO accession, are unfortunately no longer in Russia's interests." Gordeyev's statement comes amid heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington over the war in ex-Soviet Georgia.

Poultry impact

While causing a lot of frantic phone calls over the past 24-hours, Gordeyev's comments so far have not been followed by any government-to-government discussions about reducing the quotas, U.S. Poultry and Egg Export Council (USAPEEC) President James Sumner told Meatingplace.com.


That said, just a month ago, USAPEEC and the Russian Poultry Meat Market Operators Association agreed in principle to reduce the 2009 U.S. tariff quota from 931,500 tons to 750,000 tons. (See Russia to cut tariff quotas on U.S. poultry imports on Meatingplace.com, July 29, 2008.)

"Our office in Moscow thinks it fortuitous we had these discussions. The (U.S. poultry) industry is already anticipating a decrease in exports to Russia," said Sumner, noting that Russia has been increasing its poultry production by 16 to 17 percent annually in recent years. Currently, Russia is the largest export market for U.S. chicken, accounting for over 25 percent of exports.

Pork impact

Russia also has been cited as an important and growing export market for U.S. pork.
The U.S. Meat Export Federation lists Russia as the fourth largest export market for U.S. pork. In the first six months of 2008, U.S. pork exports to Russia totaled 75,730 metric tons, up 143 percent in volume from the first six months of 2007.

Smithfield Foods CEO Larry Pope cited Russia Tuesday as one of the key growing markets that has helped boost the company's fresh pork sales. At a time when there is a large domestic supply of pork, strong and growing exports have been critical to keeping U.S. pork prices afloat.