Quota for pork imports to Russia will be replaced by a duty in 2020

Russia will replace the tariff quota for pork imports with a duty of 25% starting from January 1, 2020, the director of the trade negotiations department of the Ministry of Economic Development Ekaterina Mayorova said.

She also said that this is the last step in liberalizing import tariffs. For tariff obligations, Russia owes nothing to the WTO.

Russia began quoting meat imports in 2003. In recent years, the size of the pork import quota has not changed and amounts to 430 thousand tons, including trimming (30 thousand tons) per year. However, the quota is not selected, imports are falling.

According to the Institute of Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR), in 2018 Russia imported 61.3 thousand tons of pork, in 2017 - 281.2 thousand tons, according to Interfax. The decrease was due to a ban on the supply of Brazilian pork in December 2017 due to the discovery of a growth stimulator of ractopamine in it.

In the first half of 2019, pork imports to Russia grew 1.8 times, to 56.5 thousand tons. This is due, inter alia, to the fact that from November 1, 2018, import was allowed to 4 Brazilian pork producers. So, Brazil increased supplies by 2.5 times. Import from Argentina grew by 3.6 times, Chile - by 15%, from Paraguay - by 28%.

At the same time, it is noted that pork supplies outside the quota amounted to a small amount: in 2018 - 6.4% of all imports of this meat, this year - 4.9%.

SOURCE: Sfera.fm