At a government session Thursday, Alexei Gordeyev, the minister of agriculture, told Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov it was necessary to protect the interests of domestic meat producers, as the country has recently seen an alarmingly high level of meat imports.
"We have given an order to investigate the situation with meat imports to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Federal Customs Service, the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Tax Service," Fradkov said. "Execute the order as soon as possible, and do not pass along the responsibility to each other."
Minister Gordeyev said that Russia's meat imports increased some 21% last year compared to 2005, while exports increased only 2.8%.
He added that the fight against counterfeit meat deliveries to Russia was also of high importance.
"About 250,000 tons of pork is illegally imported, which equals the annual production of about 20 [Russian] large pork producers," he said, adding that "Some 150,000 tons of this volume comes from China via St. Petersburg."
In November 2005, Russia imposed an embargo on Polish meat, claiming that meat from third countries was being imported as Polish produce.
