According to the Dutch agency FVF, Poland’s fruit and vegetable exports to Russia dropped by approximately 40% last year, from 976 thousand tonnes to 561 thousand tonnes. Apples were the most affected product.
The total export of fruit and vegetables to Russia in 2014 amounted to over 561.8 thousand tonnes, of which 559.3 thousand tonnes were shipped during the first seven months of the year, before the introduction of the embargo.
This means that, between August and December, only 2.5 thousand tonnes of Polish fruits and vegetables arrived to the Russian market, compared to the 214.7 thousand tonnes shipped in the corresponding months of 2013.
Throughout 2014, Poland exported 448.9 thousand tonnes less fruit and 113.0 thousand tonnes less vegetables to Russia. Apples were the most affected. In 2014, the total export volume for this fruit amounted to 418.0 thousand tonnes, compared with the more than 580 thousand tonnes shipped a year earlier. In the period after the introduction of the embargo, only 949 tonnes were exported, compared to the 125 thousand tonnes of the previous year.
In the first seven months of 2014, fruit exports to Russia amounted to 447.8 thousand tonnes, while vegetable exports reached 111.4 thousand tonnes. Cabbages were the most exported product, followed by mushrooms and tomatoes. Besides apples, other fruits shipped to Russia included pears, strawberries and cherries.
Russia’s Ministry of Transportation announced that new amendments have successfully passed into law that will place stricter requirements on the documentation of foreign vehicle-based transport. The monetary penalty for failing to provide all the necessary documents has also increased from 50 thousand rubles per car to 200 thousand rubles. Russia’s Ministry of Transportation also announced that the new amendments are meant to strengthen the government’s control over foreign logistics in the country.
According to official data, foreign companies accounted for about 60 percent of the market of the international road transport market. It is speculated that the fall of the ruble and rising production costs had forced Russian logistics companies to raise tariffs to a level that is higher than many foreign competitors.
Sergey Dankvert, head of the Russian Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Service (VPSS), proposed Leonid Zaets, minister of agriculture and provisions of Belorussia, to return to earlier opened discussions over the border monitoring. Mr Dankert proposes to jointly monitor supplies of regulated products through the external borders of the Customs Union on the Belorussian side.
Earlier Belorussian ag ministry declared that such control is possible if external borders of the whole Customs Union (located on frontiers of Kazakhstan and Russia) are monitored as well.
Starting from September 2014, VPSS has discovered 248 cases of import of quarantined products to Russia though Belorussia, total weight of which exceeded 5,000 tons.
This year russian fishing industry will face serious changes. Russian fishermen have to fill the space on local shelves after the ban on the import of seafood.
In Rosrybolovstvo (Federal Agency for Fishery) can stimulate producers to sell the catch inside the country using administrative measures.
From 22 to 28 af April 2015 Rosrybolovstvo together with Moscow government for the first time hold in Moscow a “fish week”. The main idea is to turn russian buyers on the domestic fish and to bring together suppliers and sellers of fish products.
“For us it is important that local fish comes into the Russian market,” – said the head of Federal Agency for Fishery Ilya Shestakov.
This year generally the catch is just 4% higher than previous year, mainly because of good catch in Far East basin, in the Northern basing the situation is worse because of bad weather and the reduction of quotas for some species.
In previous years Russian fishermen has lost their positions in the Russian market and has been sending their catch to the export. And now the shelves are empty and Rosrybolovsto tries to turn the catch back inside the country.
The problem is not only the interest of fishermen – to sell more expensive – but also retailers are used to get large quantities of nice packaged imported fish that is able to compete for the buyer with the meat products. And there is also economic interest of transport companies that prefer to move the product that is paid more.
And now, after the ruble has lost its positions fishermen has more motivation to ship abroad to receive foreign currency. Domestic prices for fish increase following the foreign prices. But no one is interested in fact that food prices are rising too quickly.
The head of Federal Agency for Fishery doesn’t rule out the adoption of administrative measures to reduce the export of fish (such as increase of export duties on fish that will make it unprofitable).
In addition, this year Rosrybolovstvo promises to solve the problem with transportation. For certain types of fish they plan to introduce subsidies and reduce tariffs for transportation in refrigerated containers.
Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of the Russian Federation proposed to substantially decrease import duties on vegetables and fruits till the next domestic harvest. Current duties on potatoes, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, cabbage are set between 12 and 15%. Initiative of FAS will allow to decrease current prices on produce.
Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor) allowed import of Moldovan apples to Russia. Moldovan apples were partially reopened to the market on February 26, 2015. Moldova was not part of the Russian Food Ban, however, experienced phytosanitary issues with the Russian Ag Ministry. According to press, Moldova is ready to supply 60 thousand tons of apples.
Government of Greece has approached Russian officials with a proposal to terminate embargo on Greek oranges, strawberries and peaches. This matter was discussed between deputy ag minister of Greece Panayotis Sguridis and representative of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture Alexey Alexeenko during his visit to Soloniki. Alexeenko promised to forward an official letter to PM Dmitri Medvedev, where he will speak for exclusion of these 3 products from the embargo list.
According to the St. Petersburg Committee of Entrepreneurship Development and Consumer Market, during CY2014 prices on produce have increased by 16.2%. (in 2013 growth was 13.4%), at the same time, during first months of 2015 prices started to accelerate considerably. Price comparison between January 19, 2015/December 30,2014: cabbage – 43.3%, cucumbers — 45,8%, carrots — 17 %, tomatoes — 16,5%, onions — 13,7%, potatoes — 10,8%, apples — 9,8%.
In the months before the boycott, the import was above the 2013 import volume for those months. Notably, the share of European countries comes out a bit lower in those months, so more was imported from countries that were also allowed to export after the boycott. After the borders closed in August for products including fruit and veg from Europe, import went down by 20%.
The country that profited the most from the boycott, is Turkey. From that country, in the period August-December, nearly 140,000 tonnes, or 25% more, was imported into Russia. According to Russian customs data, during the whole of 2014, over 1.38 million tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables was imported from Turkey. The Turkish export statistic shows a virtually identical figure for the Turkish export to Russia, namely 1.33 million tonnes. Other countries that profited from the boycott are China (+10%), Belarus (+35%), Serbia (+36%), Argentina (+68%), Ukraine (+38%), and Macedonia (+228%).
The biggest growth for Turkey was in the export of soft fruit, grapes, lemons, oranges and cucumbers. For China, mainly the volume of pears increased. The export of tomatoes and apples remained virtually the same. Belarus mainly profited with the export of apples, tomatoes, pears, carrots and head cabbage.
The gap caused by the boycott, hasn’t been filled for a number of products. The imported volume of apples between August and December amounted to 250,000 tonnes, while a year before in the same period 450,000 tonnes of apples were still being imported. For tomatoes, things look rather similar. Where in 2013, 274,000 tonnes was imported in the boycott months, that amount was 194,000 tonnes for the same months in 2014. And things are looking the same for pears. In 2013, 154,000 tonnes were imported in the period August-December. In 2014, that was 95,000 tonnes.
For other products, the import was also not fully compensated. The volume of bananas from Ecuador was also lower in these months than in 2013. All in all, the import of fresh fruit and vegetables in the second half of 2014 came out 20% lower than in 2013, amounting to 600,000 tonnes less import. The import of fruit was lower in particular (-440,000 tonnes), with vegetables seeing a 160,000 tonne decrease.
Over the entire year, the import from the Netherlands did increase. That’s mainly caused by an increase in the onion export in the first half of 2014, but the import of tomatoes, pears and head cabbage also went well. All in all, Russia imported 270,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables from the Netherlands last year.
Group of deputies of the State Duma introduced a bill that proposed to revise the process of implementing “special economic measures”, such as sanctions. Authors of the bill state that the existing process showed its inefficiency and unrestricted power to the executive branch of the government. Initiative was widely criticized and called unpatriotic by other members of the Duma.