MOSCOW, March 18. /ITAR-TASS/. Moscow should not fear any interruptions in food and goods supplies from Europe and NATO countries; the city will not remain without food anyway, the head of the city’s department for trade and services, Alexei Nemeryuk, told journalists on Tuesday.
“I do not find it likely our partners who supply products to Moscow can either default on their contracts or impose an embargo on food going to the Russian capital,” he said. The city administration had no concerns but calculated the necessary supplies in case any of these scenarios materialized, he added.
Moscow is reliant on meat imports, as up to 60% of supplies come from abroad. Most of the providers are not NATO countries but BRICS partners, so “there are no fears” in this respect, said Nemeryuk. Ten% of chicken meat is imported from the U.S., but Russia has already reached sufficient domestic production and can also import it from the CIS partners. The official added the import of cheap chicken quarters from the U.S. was no more relevant, though attempts to push this product through were still being made. According to Nemeryuk, beef is imported mostly from Brazil, mutton - from Russia’s southern regions, New Zealand, Australia. Kazakhstan is planning to enter the Russian market too.
Russia slightly depends on Turkey for vegetables and fruit and on European suppliers for berries and fruit, but, according to Nemeryuk, Moscow had emergency resources and could, if need be, to re-orient itself towards different markets. Yet this, he added, was a hypothetical calculation, as “Europe really wants to get to the Russian market”, and dismissed fears over supplies of consumer products and clothes.