United Grain Company imports nearly 900,000 eggs from Turkey to Russia by sea

MOSCOW. Jan 29 (Interfax) - United Grain Company has imported a batch of 885,600 eggs to Russia from Turkey.

The company told Interfax that the cargo arrived at the port of Novorossiysk.

"This is the first batch to arrive by sea. The eggs were unloaded and cleared by customs on Saturday," UGC said.

Eggs from Turkey are also delivered to Russia by road. They are also imported from Azerbaijan and Belarus.

Egg prices went up around 60% in 2023 and 18.2% in December alone, the Russian State Statistics Service has said. In light of this, the government has set zero import duty on eggs for the first half of 2024 in a move that should bring 1.2 billion eggs into the country, stabilizing prices for them.

Egg prices have indeed started to come down in January. They fell 0.2% in the week January 10-15, their first drop since the end of June 2023, and 1.4% in the week January 16-22.

Russian agricultural organizations produced 38.1 billion eggs in 2023, up 1.8% from 2022. They produced 3.212 billion in December, down 0.5% year-on-year.

UGC is a trade and logistics operator for agricultural products and one of the five biggest exporters of Russian grain. The state owns 50% plus one share and Demetra-Holding 50% minus one share.