The ban on Chinese fruit import may push the fruit prices up in Siberia & Russia's Far East.
16/08/2019
The introduced by Rosselkhoznadzor import ban of Chinese fruit will come in force since the 10 August 2019. Chinese plums, nectarines, apricots, peaches, cherries, apples, pears & quinces are included in embargo list.
According to the government agency a lot of cases of infected fruit & vegetable supplies became the main reason of the import ban. As Rosselkhoznadzor informed, 48 cases of such supplies were found out in the period between 2018 and 2019. These cases mostly occurred to the stone & seeded fruit production.
Rosselkhozenadzor reported time and again the Chinese side about violations revealed & offered to organize the expert sessions & inspect production, stock holding & packing points of exporting products. But the monitoring visits hadn’t been held yet. According to the government agency the question of the importing resumption will be discussed only after the necessary sessions with the Chinese side & monitoring of production, stock holding & packing points of exporting to Russia products. In addition, Rosselkhoznadzor renegotiated the import standards for Chinese production, which acted since Nineties & allowed simplified supplies.
The import ban caused worry for some retail chains representatives in Siberia & Russia’s Far East, where the Chinese imports share is more than 50%, and in some regions reached 80%. The market experts are afraid of the possible gap in the market and the price increase in the future, as the result.
According to Tamara Reshetnikova, the Director General of “Technologii Rosta”, the Chinese import ban will cause the fruit prices increase in Siberia & Russia’s Far East in low-price segment. “It’s difficult to forecast the level of prices increase. It depends on how soon the Chinese import ban will be taken off. At the moment, when the harvesting is in progress, we will escape the price hike mostly due to the crop harvesting going on with increasing speed in the Southern regions & high fruit yield”, - she supposed. Reshetnikova thinks, the ban prolongation after the New Year will cause fruit price increase in these regions by an average of 15-20%.
“Fruit producers of the South Russia & Northern Caucasus reports, they are ready to increase the supplies & meet a gap in the fruit market. But as soon as supplies are arranged, people in Siberia & Far East will feel the lack of fruit production on the local market”, - Reshetnikova thinks.
“The consumer surely will not suffer from the medium import restrictions. Kuban gardeners are ready to place the import supplies by local production. The Chinese import ban will make positive impact on economic result of the horticultural business”, - vice governor of Krasnodar Region Alexander Korobka told to TASS Agency in the 3 August 2019.
According to the vice governor, import restrictions will allow to keep market prices steady in summer & autumn, when the fruit & berries crop harvesting lasts. He said, some producers had to bargain away the grown crop due to the lack of fruit-stores & crop surplus in the market.
Ministry of Agriculture of the region reported, that nearly 30 thousand tons of fruit & berries were harvested since the start of the year, including more than 16 thousand tons of seeded fruit & 12,6 thousand tons of stone fruit. The bumper strawberry crop in the last decade was harvested this year. It doubled the last year result & reached 1,1 thousand tons.
The new gardens acreage grows annually in Krasnodar Region. More than 703 million rubles were invested by State budget in this program. The fruit-stores building are also carried out.
Sources:
08/03/2019 https://tass.ru/ekonomika/6729740