Argentina Resumes Beef Exports
Argentina, the world's largest producer of beef, partially lifted its ban on beef exports last Friday. Argentine beef producers will be allowed to export 110,000 tons of beef. The ban will be completely lifted in September of this year. The ban had been in effect since March of this year, when it was determined that the high cost of the product on the domestic market was a basic cause of the country's double-digit inflation. Argentines hold the world's record for beef consumption, at 65 kg. per person per year.
Analysts expect beef prices in Russia to rise nonetheless, in connection with a general worldwide shortage of the meat. Russia is one of the largest buyers of Argentine beef, and was therefore hit hard by the ban. The lifting of the ban will have little effect on the Russian market, however, experts say, because of the policy of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, which favors the European Union. Country-by-country quotas on meat imports have been in place in Russia since 2003. The European Union has the quota for 78 percent of beef exports to Russia.
Europe has also become a large-scale meat importer in the last five years, importing 12,000 tons of beef in the first four months of this year, and negotiations are underway to change the quota to allot 50 percent of beef imports to Latin America. If the European Union does not agree to the change in quotas, the price of meat in Russia will rise 20 percent in the next few months, according to National Meat Association head Sergey Yushin.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 30, 2006
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