Import of meat was the largest in the last 5 years

The analyst of agricultural markets and the national consultant of FAO Andrii Pankratov informed how the import of meat to Ukraine was increasing.

Due to the success of poultry farmers, Ukraine has turned into a net exporter of meat since 2014. There has been a lot of talk about exports, but now I need to say a few words about the import. New records is the reason for this.

In our forecasts for 2018, imports of meat, by-products and salo in Ukraine as a whole should remain at the level of last year. We expected an increase in imports of pork and salo, which will be offset by a decrease in the importation of poultry meat ...

The first three months of this year showed an increase in imports for all positions. Moreover, for all positions imports for the first quarter this year turned out to be the largest for the last 5 years (for pork - for 4 years).

Visually, the situation can be estimated from the diagram, but here are the figures for statisticians:

- Pork imports in the 1st quarter of 2018 - 1.8 thousand tons (+ 17.1% as compared to the 1st quarter of 2017)

- Import of poultry meat - 30,8 thousand tons (+ 26%)

- Import of by-products - 8,4 thousand tons (+ 44%)

- Import of salo - 14.1 thousand tons (+ 58%)

These are our main import positions. Import of beef is insignificant, import of other kinds of meat is almost absent.

What's going on?

Last year's rise in price of meat in the domestic market contributed to a marked increase in imports. This happened in the second half of last year, but even now these "doors" are still open. Fluctuation of Ukrainian and European prices (almost all imports now go to us from the EU, so their prices are important to us) were not very significant since the end of 2017 to change the situation. Only in March, prices in the EU went up, however, at the same time, the hryvnia strengthened, and imports were still possible.

In recent weeks pork in the EU has somewhat stabilized in prices, but do not forget the recent ban by China of imports of American pork products. This can help raise prices in Europe, and then we will have two options: either Ukrainian prices will not change and imports will slow down, or our prices will go up after the European ones, and imports will continue. Given the decline in the production of pork, which we have now, and the desire of producers to put increase in the price, the second option seems more likely.

With chicken, the situation is somewhat different. The rise in prices in the EU has already been taking place for several weeks, whereas it doesn't affect our situation. The production of chicken in our country is growing, consumers are not yet ready to show increased demand, getting used to the fact that the chicken already takes such a large share in their protein ration more than ever. So, the scenario of import slowdown and more or less stable prices is more likely in this segment of the market.