Brazil hopes to increase pork sales to Russia in early 2022

The Brazilian pork industry is preparing to increase protein exports to Russia in the first months of 2022, despite the limited access to the country due to frozen water in several ports during the Russian winter.

Having recently received a round of refrigerator unit refurbishments from Russia, exporters plan to enter the country through the port of St. Petersburg according to ABPA (the Brazilian association of animal protein).

“I’m sure that the volume shipped in January and February will increase… because St. Petersburg does not freeze,” stated the president of the association, Ricardo Santin.

An executive at one of the country’s main meat exporters told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the movement is likely to start in the first quarter, but the positive impact is expected to benefit the industry in the first half of next year.

Santin recalled that the Russian market was once the main buyer of pork protein from Brazil, but it drastically reduced imports due to a strategy of betting on local production. It is now resuming a closer partnership.

“Russia managed to be self-sufficient in this sector for a while, but now it has several factors that lead it to seek the foreign market, such as the African swine fever (PSA), an increase in the cost of production, and an increase in local consumption”, said Santin.

Association data indicate that Brazilians exported 259.41 tons of pork to Russians in 2017. Between January and October 2021, however, this volume plummeted to just 3,827 tons.

Quotas

The Ministry of Agriculture informed Reuters in a note that by 2020, Russia had a quota of 430,000 tons to import pork from any country in the world at a zero tariff. In 2020, the quota was abolished and the Russians established a flat rate of 25%.

But last week, the ministry said, the Russian government announced a new quota of 100,000 tons at a zero tariff, valid from January 1st to June 30th of next year.

“The trend is for exports to increase again,” said the president of the ABPA, citing that the quota is not exclusive to Brazil, but the country may be one of the main beneficiaries.

Source: Money Times

To read the full original article, visit the link: https://www.moneytimes.com.br/brasil-espera-elevar-vendas-de-carne-suina-para-russia-no-inicio-de-2022/

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