Official website of the President of Russia

Transcripts   /

Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev on customs tariff regulation of poultry imports to Russia:

As you know, the United States is the biggest supplier of poultry imports on the Russian market with an import quota of around 75–80 percent.

Rounding the figures off, they have a quota of around 800,000 tons. We have an import quota of 1.15 million tons of chicken in total, and 800,000 tons of this is the American quota. This is a considerable preference that has been accorded to our American colleagues, but this was tied to Russia’s becoming a member of the World Trade Organisation, so that we could act on an equal footing with our partners, including the European Union countries, where there are sizeable subsidies both for production and exports. Now, though, we are in a situation where the accession negotiations are dragging on and it is not expedient to continue maintaining such a high quota for American producers. They are earning around $1 billion on the Russian market. Given that the negotiations are dragging on, it would make sense to revise this quota. Clearly, we will raise this question with our American colleagues now.

President Vladimir Putin: So, you propose redistributing the quota among other exporters?

Alexei Gordeyev: Yes, among other countries. Brazil, in particular, has been actively bringing up this issue. They say that they have genuine potential that they are currently developing, but that they cannot enter the Russian market on competitive conditions because of our country-based quotas.