"Today Russia continues the development of its own pig industry through the active construction of modern pig farms, which will allow to remove the country’s pork import dependence in the coming years," said an offical of "Dymov," one of Russia’s producers of premium meat products.
This is in line with statements from Deputy Prime Minister, Viktor Zubkov. According to his projections, by 2012 Russia will be able to stop almost all imports of pork from abroad. According to the vice-premier, in order to implement such plans, the growth of the domestic output should amount to 200,000 tonnes annually.
While most of the Russian industry analysts agree with the government’s projections, they also note that due to the crisis some of the ambitious projects have already been frozen by Russian companies.
"Currently the volume of state support of the Russian pork industry is enormous at the federal and regional levels, while the main goal of the government is to prevent the establishment of cartels when the market is fully dominated by several large agroholdings, which have an opportunity to set prices across the country,” stated the representative from Dymov.
(By Evegen Vorotnikov)
