22 April 2004 08:54
RUSSIA COULD DOUBLE POULTRY PRODUCTION BY 2010 - ROSPTITSESOYUZ
MOSCOW. April 22 (Interfax) - Russia might increase its poultry meat production to 2.5 million tonnes by 2010,
doubling current output and fully meeting home market needs.
Chief expert at the Russian poultry-raisers union Rosptitsesoyuz Lyudmila Abramova told Interfax that achieving this
is the aim of a federal sector development program, the draft of which will be discussed at the Agriculture Ministry in
May. The program would see development figured for two periods: 2004-2007 and to 2010.
Abramova said at a Thursday press conference at Interfax that poultry meat production will increase 200,000 tonnes to
1.26 million tonnes this year.
Russian Meat Union president Musheg Mamikonyan was at the press conference. He said, "Optimistic calculations
have the production of poultry meat in Russia possibly being 3-3.5 million tonnes by 2010." The market's size
will be 10 million tonnes by that time, of which 4.5 million tonnes will be poultry meat, he predicted.
About the development program, Abramova said the document "envisions a range of measures aimed at taking
domestic producers to a qualitatively new level and increasing the competitiveness of their product."
It is aimed most of all at developing domestic pedigree bird- raising, she said. "We have to reject importing
pedigree birds, since there are dangerous avian diseases in some countries," she noted. The program also envisions
beefing up veterinary protection for poultry, creating new vaccines and medicines.
Russia also has to start making its own equipment and machinery for cultivating and processing poultry, she said.
"Earlier, this equipment came from plants in Ukraine and Belarus, and we now have to create our own."
Abramova to not disclose the program's price tag, but did say that "it will cost billions" in domestic
and foreign investments and credits.
[Interfax] |
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