Russian meat exports soar

Russia exported a record amount of meat products in 2022, Sergey Dankvert, the head of national agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor, said in a statement on Tuesday.

According to Dankvert, the volume of meat exports reached 650,000 tons last year. He added that export volumes exceeded imports by 100,000 tons.

“We can already say that Russia is a major food producer. Today we are major exporters of grain, major exporters of meat,” the official stated during a meeting with Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Dankvert added that Russia is the globe’s largest grain exporter, supplying its products to 140 countries.

He also noted that Russia has improved the quality of dairy and meat products by almost 40% in the past five years, while the share of detected unsafe products has decreased significantly. In dairy products, the figure dropped from 8.5% in 2017 to 2.5% in 2022, the official stated.

In an earlier statement, Dankvert noted that Russian producers focus on countries such as Vietnam, China, and the UAE for meat exports. Meanwhile, roughly half of imported meat products are supplied to Russia from neighboring Belarus.

Russia is reportedly among the five largest producers of pork and poultry meat in the world. According to Sergey Yushin, head of the executive committee of Russia’s National Meat Association, the volume of meat production in the country had increased by 3.5% by the end of 2022. This year, production is expected to continue to grow by at least 3%.

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section