USMEF South American Expo (Click to download PDF form) | Russia Imposes New M...
Russia Imposes New Meat Tariffs and Quotas
The Russian government is imposing a quota on poultry imports and tariff rate quotas on beef and pork imports. The annual import quota for beef is 420,000 metric tons (mt) with an import duty of 15 percent, but no less than 0.15 Euro per kilogram. The duty on beef imports in excess of the quota will be 60 percent, but no less than 0.6 Euro per kilogram.
Pork imports will be limited to 450,000 metric tons annually. The size of the import duty on pork within the quota will be 15 percent, but no less than 0.25 Euro per kilogram. The import duty on pork beyond the quota will be 80 percent, but no less than 1.06 Euro per kilogram.
German Gref, minister of Economica Development and Trade, announced the decision on December 30. The introduction of quotas on beef and pork imports will be enforced between one and three months following the official publishing of a corresponding Russian government resolution. USMEF is pursuing specific details on this timeframe, and will announce them once confirmed.
Gref stated the Commission was pursuing two goals while making such decisions: observe the interests of Russian consumers and avoid the meat price hikes on one hand, while giving Russian producers an opportunity to increase their production volumes on the other hand. The new limits compare to 2001 Russian imports of 475,577 mt of beef, 398,207 mt of pork, and 1,390,747 mt of poultry meat.
The poultry import quota, set at an annual volume of 1.05 million mt and an import duty within the quota at 25 percent, is scheduled to begin on April 1, 2003. The Commission decided to remove a current 5% import duty on soybean meal, which is a major protein compound of the poultry feed.
USMEF alerted members to potential Russian import quotas in Export Newsline for December 9, 2002. Please see our archived Export Newsline at http://www.usmef.org/PDF_Newsline_02/Newsline02_1209.pdf