By Evegen Vorotnikov
According to initial plans, this project will be realised through the tightening of veterinary requirements for meat and meat products supplied from Europe, as well as by the implementation of pork and poultry import quotas starting from December 1 this year.
Currently the level of meat production in Ukraine is steadily declining, due to large amounts of low-quality meat imports, in particular pork and poultry supplied from abroad.
Most of the local meat producers are finding it difficult to compete with foreign producers, which exports are subsidized, and also due to a non-tariff protection of the European meat market, in contrast to the Ukrainian.
In fact, the project of meat import restrictions to the country has already been launched. The Ukrainian authorities have promised to monitor all foreign companies for compliance with local veterinary standards and have already banned the import of products from nine foreign meat processing plants, mainly from Europe.
Meanwhile the European experts believe that this approach of the Ukrainian veterinarians is expensive, time-consuming and inefficient aimed only to reduce meat imports from the European Union.
