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.
The premium segment has been hit hardest since the boycott. Apart from the negative consequences of the devaluation of the rouble, the trade in exotics and organic products has nearly come to a halt. Ksenia Gorovaya, director of Crisp Consulting LLC, said at Fruit Logistica that supplies of organic products have been lost. For these products, Russia was completely dependent on the import from the US and Europe. Apart from the upper segment, “there are no shortages on store shelves yet. Supply is much more limited than before though.”