Agriculture minister not seeing serious threat of shortages due to embargo
MOSCOW. Oct 9 (Interfax) - Russian Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov is not seeing a serious threat of product shortages due to the embargo that was imposed by Russia in response to Western sanctions.
At a press conference on Thursday, Fyodorov said that the reduction of imports from countries affected by the embargo is immaterial. In particular, he said that cheese accounted for the largest amount of restricted imports - 30%.
Imports of pork fell by 12%, beef - 2.5%, poultry meat - 8%, he said. The fall in the volume of purchased fish and seafood was 14.9%, milk and dairy products - 10.2%, vegetables - 5.8% and fruit and berries - 14.7%.
"These figures do not scare me. Objectively, they do not give a reason for saying that we have fallen into such a difficult position regarding food, that we cannot find other options, alternative suppliers or that much time is required to cover falling supplies of imported food, Fyodorov said.