Russia-Massive drop in meat imports for first quarter 2009.

RUSSIA: Meat Imports to Drop More than double in January – February

Meat imports to Russia declined more than two-fold in January – February. Pursuant to the data published yesterday, meat imports were down from 190.9 thousand tons ($498.6m) for two months last year to 95.6 thousand tons ($313.4m). Apart from that, poultry imports dropped from 162.3 to 87.8 thousand tons.

While te pretence is being kept up that export plants do not come up to muster, reality indecates there is no money in the industry to purchase meat.

The results of the EU inspectors visits to the primitaive Russian plants this week, will be interesting.