July 18 2002, 09:29 Interfax-Ukraine

Ukraine: meat and milk prices will rise - Agrarian Ministry

Meat and milk prices in Ukrainian home market will be rising till the end of this year, Deputy State Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture Yuriy Melnik believes. He told reporters that the Ministry expected rise in price for these products in the second half of the year due to seasonal drop of supplies and some other factors. He said, however, that price "levelling-off with those of last year" was not likely.

Farmers of Ukraine have complained of considerable decrease in livestock products prices in this year.

Mr. Melnik noted that despite seasonal drop in production, market would still be burdened with an excess of meat and milk supplies, because one of its most important components - the export - would not be able to reach the levels of past year.

Mr. Melnik pointed out that through the first quarter of this year milk prices had fallen 13% and meat ones - 14%. According to him, the meat price slump was substantially fostered by activization of smuggling. He said that the object of smuggling predominantly was meat, destined for further processing in Ukraine, which significantly destabilized the market. Specialists assess the amounts of smuggling as taking up about 20 percent of meat market in Ukraine at the moment.

Mr. Melnik told about preventive measures that had been developed and relevant orders that had been given to customs and vet authorities to stop illegal imports of livestock products.

According to the Ministry, meat production in Ukraine in the first half-year of 2002 rose 6.3% compared with the same period of 2001 and reached 1.12 million tonnes, milk production increased 6.6% and came to 7.04 million tonnes.