Russia to continue push to open Chinese market to pork exports - Abramchenko

MOSCOW. March 24 (Interfax) - Russia will continue efforts to open up the Chinese market to its pork exports, Deputy Prime Minister Viktoria Abramchenko said.

"Of course, we're dreaming about exporting pork [to China]. We're holding these negotiations, we will continue," Abramchenko told reporters on Thursday after the government's report to the State Duma.

Pork producers from Russian regions with a favourable situation regarding African swine fever (ASF) are insisting that they can "bring missions, show [Russia's system of control] to the relevant regulatory bodies of friendly countries and persuade our partners that these enterprises specifically and these regions specifically are free of African fever, that there are no problems with supplies of meat products," Abramchenko said.

This is a promising area, she said. "We will now work on this in the light of the trade intensification of Russian-Chinese relation," Abramchenko said.

She also said that Russia is one of the top three suppliers of poultry meat to China. "This is very good. Last year we had growth of 10%. As for beef, we're holding the bar at the 2021 level. We have about 21,000 tonnes there," Abramchenko said.

Speaking about exports of agribusiness products in general, she said the president has set the goal of increasing them to $50 billion per year. "We are pursuing this threshold. When will it be reached? When we shift to trading high-margin products, meaning when the line of agricultural products expands, and we believe in this," Abramchenko said.

It was reported earlier that Russian agribusiness exports grew by 14.8% to $41.3 billion in 2022.