Russian dairy producers have increased exports

The most dynamic export product of the Russian dairy industry was whey — last year it was exported two times more (3.3 thousand tons, or $ 2.9 million). High growth rates showed exports of ice cream — plus 30%, in total there was exported 17.2 thousand tons of these products for $ 38.2 million. The export of cheese products increased by 28% to 22.6 million tons, or $ 25.7 million. Positive dynamics was achieved in the export of dairy products (12%) and butter (9%). The largest share in the Russian dairy exports (in value terms) accounted for fermented milk products (26%), in the second place — cheese and curd (22%), followed by ice cream (15%).

Major consumers of Russian dairy products are the CIS countries — Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan. Kazakhstan's share gradually decreases — from 56% in 2013 to 45% according to preliminary results of 2015, while Ukraine over the same period increased its share from 5% to 17%. As experts of Agro2b point out, it can be connected with the supply of free aid, but at the same time, it should be noted that all foreign trade operations with the DPR and LPR in the Russian customs statistics are recorded in the statistics on Ukraine. As EADaily noted earlier, for this reason Ukraine also showed the significant increase in imports of Russian meat and beer last year.

On the one hand, the increase in dairy exports is, of course, a convincing signal that the situation in the Russian dairy industry is not the worst. The main symptom of the protracted crisis in this segment remains a constant reduction of the dairy herd, but at the same time, milk production in large and medium-sized enterprises is gradually increasing. As a result, last year they managed to compensate for the failure of the export, which was observed the previous year (minus 3.7%, or 606 thousand tons, according to Rosstat). On the other hand, the growth of the Russian dairy exports once again demonstrates that domestic dairy products due to the continuous increase of domestic prices and falling incomes of the population simply are not required on the domestic market. As it was noted by EADaily, in the middle of last year, the Accounts chamber stated that for the last three years the consumption of dairy products in the country decreased by 15%.

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